Unless you have an awesome grip on technology or a complete aversion to all things modern, the chances are that, like me, you have accounts for: Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, WordPress (among others) and are consequentially lost in a sea of social media platforms.
Perhaps you are a little confused how to use each one to the best effect? This is the challenge I am trying to overcome tonight. I’ve spent the evening browsing a variety of sites, reading a few blogs and articles. Luckily, some of the content I found was interesting – so much so that I wanted to share some of it with friends, while other items I wished to save for later, as a reference. But which tool is most fit for each purpose? I don’t like to share everything via facebook (partly because it just doesn’t feel like the right place; partly because I don’t think it’ll be the most convenient platform for the recipient). Neither do I like to save everything into Evernote (I recently exceeded 100 notes and realised it will soon become difficult to find things unless I categorise them properly).
I’ve identified 8 platforms which I have accounts for and which could potentially be used to share or store my findings:
- Facebook – sharing with friends (individuals or all),
- Google+ – sharing with the few people who use it,
- LinkedIn – sharing with colleagues or friends in a professional capacity,
- Tumblr (4 blogs) – supposedly for sharing, but more for my personal record,
- WordPress (2 blogs) – this blog and another one which was an attempt at an alternative to Tumblr,
- Evernote – my private store of notes (categorising these will be a task in itself),
- Instapaper (4 categories) – mostly used to send articles to my Kindle to read later,
- Google Docs – a few more things which I like to have access to via the cloud.
What next? Get rid of the duplication – why do I have 4 tumblr blogs? Is my WordPress Tumblr-alternative easier to use? I guess I’m okay with the FB/G+/LI distinction for the different recipients. But I definitely need to give my ‘multiple blogs’ idea some more thought – I currently have no idea what each is even supposed to be for! I will now get a piece of paper (in fact, it’s already been patiently waiting while I wrote this post) and plan out for which purpose I will use each tool. Once that’s done, I’ll be able to once more set sail across the sea of information that is the world wide web!
Have you come across a similar problem? How do you manage your social media platforms?