Social Faux

A couple of weeks ago, I discussed my leap into social networking with Facebook. Since then I have embraced the whole notion of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo Pulse, LinkedIn, Digg, Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, you name it I'm networking it.

I have met some really interesting people and gained great insights from them. With a click of a button I can tap into my network with a question or share a new resource that will benefit a cyber colleague. I began this journey as another way to grow my business but the benefits are so much greater than I expected.Yet, there has been one troubling aspect that is common to all social media - the invitation.

The always insightful Seana Mulcahy nails it on the head in her latest blog post. I want to share and interact with my network through social media, but how much is too much? I find that each platform offers something different. For example, LinkedIn is great for pure networking but the only way of interacting is through the Answers section. Twitter is a fun and useful way for quick communications but not one I use as a networking tool. So I find myself asking who to invite and to which platform.

There are many people in my network that I'd like to share with across platforms but have largely resisted out of politeness. My hope is that one day someone will create a unified tool that allows multiple interactions across all of these various applications. Plaxo seems to be heading that way with their Pulse Stream but we'll have to wait and see how effective their efforts will be.

In the interim, I do not have hundreds of people in any one single network. In fact until today I was friendless on Twitter. I am open to exploring these applications and anyone who wants to join me...well, these days I'm everywhere!

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