Since joining Twitter in late-2008, I’ve been fairly selective about who I follow, which explains why my follower-follow ratio is so high. It’s an approach based on quality over quantity – picking people who offer interesting and different perspectives rather than letting the “parade” get too busy or noisy.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been as disciplined with Facebook and LinkedIn.
My personal Facebook account is a chock-a-block with friends, colleagues and people I’ve never met. From the start it was meant for business, which meant that, until recently, I pretty much accepted anyone as a “friend”. My LinkedIn account isn’t has messy but still not has focused as should be.
To get my “social media house” in order, I’ve decided to adopt a more pragmatic, disciplined approach in 2010. Despite the temptation to follow more people, I’m happy to have about 300. It seems like a reasonable, workable number so I’ll add some people and unfollow others to keep things in order.
On Facebook, I’ve got a two-pronged attack. First, I’ve stopped accepting people as friends unless as I really know them. I have also created a Facebook Page for my company, ME Consulting, which is where my “fans” (that word seems so strange) can exist.
LinkedIn, meanwhile, will be a place where I’ll nurture a network of people who I have met (personally or digitally) or done business with. I’m not going to accept invitations to connect from people I don’t know.
I realize there are two schools of thoughts when it comes to social media networks – one suggests building as wide a network as possible because you never know where the next connection or opportunity will come; while a second involves being selective about who you follow, add or connect with.
Right now, the latter seems to be a more comfortable place to be because it marries the best of the “analog” world where a personal network consisted of real people, with the realities of the digital world.
What’s your approach to social media networks?
3 Comments
Hey Mark, I'm in the camp that the bigger your network gets the less valuable it is. Your goals for 2010 seem like common sense to me. On LinkedIn I only connect to people I know and have some interest in having a relationship with.
Twitter is obviously a bit different, you only have control of one half of the equation
On twitter I seem to have two groups of people I follow, those I know, and those I have some interest in following but don't know.
- Alex
Hey Mark, I'm in the camp that the bigger your network gets the less valuable it is. I think this is true for Facebook and LinkedIn, but Twitter is a bit different. The more people you follow on Twitter the less chance you're reading everything thats coming in, but the more people that follow you the more chance people are reading what you're saying.
Your goals for 2010 seem like common sense to me. Why would you connect with someone on Facebook or LinkedIn you don't even know? I even restrict LinkedIn a bit further, only connecting with people I have (or want to have) some sort of relationship with.
- Alex
that's a good question. I've some people that i never met that keeps asking for friendship of facebook… should i say them "hey, we never met, can you please subscribe to this fan page instead" ? I should probably put some services on that page in order to give them a reason to subscribe, but if they still want friendship? do you give your personal cellphone number to everyone? i think that we must have a single page related to our persons, and facebook should give some better ways to split business from personal, without letting people to know if we are listing them in one, in the other or on both categories.
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