Archive for the ‘Groups’ tag
The effect of Twitter and other things
I have finally given way to Twitter-mania and have jumped on the bandwagon. Though I have known about Twitter and its effectiveness in communication with one’s social network, I was/am not quite sure how will I use the service in my day-to-day life. Yes, I can post about the latest news as I come across them, I can send my friends and family messages in a single click, and I can send interesting links to all. But the bigger question is who will be interested in what? My family is least concerned with my link on Google shares, my business contacts will ignore my fun/trivial messages and so on. This dilemma begs me to consider opening multiple accounts (I haven’t explored ‘groups’ yet) on Twitter with specific purposes and building a network accordingly. But I am also on Facebook, I am also on Linkedin, thank god I got out of Orkut, and now I am also on Twitter. I can safely say that at least an hour of mine goes away following updates on these before mentioned channels. Isn’t it too much or is it worth it? Well, the answer depends on who you are, what your purpose is, and how do you make use of the information. The way I define it is this:
1. Linkedin – Professional networking only. Try and remove all your friends from your network there and focus primarily on building business networks. This will not only seem professional but will also avoid creating a difficult situation (for e.g. if a person who is barely known to you asks for a recommendation, what do you do?).
2. Facebook – Friends only. Please, please avoid adding professional networks here. Remember, one posts various pictures and views that are sometimes frivolous, trivial, and perhaps just whacky. You do not want your next recruiter to read/view these. (Note: Sometimes there is a grey area – friends who are also business contacts. Feel free to add them to both Facebook and Linkedin – that is fine)
3. Twitter – Open an account only if you have anything meaningful to do with it. If you don’t have anything reasonable to say, please don’t post. You can follow all you like – you may want to follow a marketing guru who tweets about trends, a technological evangelist who tweets the next big thing, or a fitness freak who tweets healthy knowledge. But the space is clouded with folks who have nothing meaningful and are thus a waste in this era of increased productivity.
Well, in any case, if you want to follow me on twitter, click here or the icon above or the icon on the right. I will be posting whenever a new post is added to this blog. My other posts will be a part of a small controlled social experiment. Hopefully, I will see some specific results.
Here are a couple of interesting twitter links:
Iran and how Twitter broke the wall
Beautiful Twitter Icons for your website and blog
10 most extraordinary Twitter posts
* Icon at the top of the post has been taken from here
