This has made me think about my social media strategy. The truth is, I don’t really have one. When this blog started in 2009, the strategy was to produce via this medium and draw interest and attention back to this page. Since then, I’ve joined twitter, created a tumble log, joined linked in and various other services.

I’m now forced to think about how I spend my time on these networks and which ones I chose to contribute to the most. The problem is that they all seem worthwhile and enjoyable. So I will have to prioritise. This is how I think I will do it.

My blog – this blog

This blog will be the space most serious to me. As I pay money to keep this domain every year and have the url printed on my business card, I may as well keep this in good order. I haven’t written here consistently. There are two reasons for this. One is that I’ve been distracted with less meaningful social media services. The other reason is that I’d rather have well thought out posts on this blog, which means that I don’t often have interesting material to share here or it takes some time to write and edit everything in a decent manner. This blog will however become my most important internet presence.

Twitter

Twitter has been getting a lot of criticism lately. Poor quality topics, too many spammers, too many rants etc etc. If you reduce your stream and make good use of lists, this shouldn’t really be a problem. One thing I like about twitter is the instant access to it through mobile phones. Whenever there’s a big story, you’re sure to find opinions and links to articles for any important issue. While I enjoy twitter, I will probably tweet less. If I have something important to say, I’ll now have a good think about it and do the issue justice by writing an article for it. It will end up on twitter anyway through an automatic blog post link.

Tumblr

A great idea at the time. “I’ll just use tumblr for all the youtube videos and quotes that don’t necessarily belong on my serious style blog”. Since the emergence of google buzz and now google plus, I think tumblr has less appeal to me. It takes time away from blog writing and lately, I’m short on informal things to publish. Between twitter and google plus, I think I have this type of publishing covered.

Linkedin

Every now and then I log into Linkedin, make a few changes and then log out. I haven’t given up on linkedin, I think it’s a great presence to have but I’m not exactly there everyday and interacting with it. My time on linkedin is very low at this point and I think I will continue with the same level of engagement.

Google Buzz

I think buzz is approaching the end of it’s life cycle. I did like that both my blog and tumble log got published on my google buzz profile and therefore shared among a more tech savvy crowd. However, I think the cheap and lazy re-publishing model is being less favoured with google plus. This of course encourages users to create unique and meaningful content from within google plus rather than just bombard your material into peoples’ streams. I will stop contributing to google buzz except for the odd photo that I just have to share (instead of sharing photos through twitter) and the automatic blog posts that I have set up.

Google plus

This service will only become meaningful for me if all of my friends (yes, all, I don’t have many) start using it in a genuine manner. If this doesn’t occur then it will follow the fate of my twitter stream, full of interesting people I don’t know who sometimes upload really random things.

Conclusion

In summary my social media strategy is this. I will work hard on this blog. I will continue to use twitter for small comments in between blogging and to take in the vibe of my network. I will wait and see how google plus unfolds. If google plus is successful then I will probably spend less time on twitter and this blog to engage with it. I hope to check back in a few months to see exactly how things pan out.

The other night I was convinced that I found a meaning to all this web 2.0 publishing. So here are my thoughts on what you can use each publishing service for.

Blogging: Here is where one could post an article of medium or long length. The emphasis here is placed more on content than design. A blog is where text occupies most of the room unless you intend to have a photo blog. For photographers, services such as deviantart and flickr might be a better place to publish.

Microblogging: This can offer variuos uses. One could use this like an sms service to communicate amongst friends. It can be used for status updates – for when new blogposts have been uploaded, for travellers, or event announcements. I personally use it to post what obstacles or experiences arise during the week and also to drop in a lot of one-sentence opinions.

While I was using these two services I noticed there was a gap of information that did not qualitfy for either service. I would sometimes have something to say that was longer that 2 sentences but too short or insignificant for a blog post. I don’t wish to jam this site with every random thought so I was lucky to stumble upon tumble blogs.

Tumbleblogs (or tumble logs): – A place where you can express yourself with not so many words. Mix it up a bit by posting quotes, links, pictures, audio files, videos, or text. Definitely more laid back and the variety of options makes it more personal as you can capture many interests through these expressions. Someone who views my tumble blog would be able to know what music I like, what videos I enjoy, what objects I like to take photos of, what quotes inspire me and what I have to say when given more than 140 chars.

Summary
To sum it all up, here is my opinion on how to use each service.

Use your blog to post  articles (or long opinion pieces) that may impress or interest colleagues, people in your industry, or enthusiasts on that subject matter. A bit of research before posting is always recommended. Weekly updates are adequate for this medium

Use your micro-blogging account to be updated on people who influence you. Post important updates or links that might interest the people that follow you. Various daily updates are usually the norm when used well.

Use your tumble blog to express the personal things that matter to you the most. Things such as an inspiring quote, a picture of your pet, a video or audio clip of your favourite song, any photos that you think are worth sharing. Frequency of updates for this medium is entirely personal. I post daily to always express something worth reflecting on.

All three services have a niche and a use for today’s bloggers. Here are my other blogs to see how I have used them:
http://identi.ca/rbravo
http://rbravo.tumblr.com