Marketing Nirvana

Summary: Social Media everywhere — How much is too much — My philosophy of social media (preferences)

It’s interesting how while the rest of the technology world and the Bay area continue their fascination for all things iPhone, many marketers that I know have started complaining of the increasing noise of social media overwhelming our daily lives.

Here’s a smattering of view points from some of my blogger friends, all of them from marketing agencies and creators of well read marketing blogs:

* Greg Verdino opines:

But do “real people” behave this way? Does the typical consumer even know what Twitter is, let alone Jaiku or Pownce? I assume (hope?) that the average web user (meaning someone who doesn’t work in this crazy business) isn’t nearly as networked as I am. Maybe the average person simply joins a network — or two or three — based on where their friends hang out and, rather than constantly scanning the horizon for the next thing to join, actually stays put as long as their friends stick around.

Are social media mavens living inside a bubble of our own making, artificially inflating the impact that most of these nascent technologies are having on the population in general, and ultimately getting our companies and our clients riled up over something that will, over time, turn out to be, well um, nothing?

As an agency marketer I believe Greg experiences all these various social media options available since he can then make judicious recommendations to his client, but I’m curious as to what Greg’s true social media choices are?

* Valeria Maltoni asks:

More importantly – What about the work it takes to update all these networks? I have a hard enough time updating my LinkedIn! Has anyone thought about integrating?

And now that we have social networks are blogs obsolete?

* Jeremy Keith summarizes his online networking choices but ends on an interesting note:

More interestingly, there are some exceptions that run in the other direction. I have lots of connections on Linked in and Facebook but I don’t use them much at all. In the case of Linked in, that’s because I don’t really have any incentive. I’m sure it would be a different story if I were looking for a job.

As for Facebook, I really don’t like the way it tries to be a one-stop shop for everything. It feels like a walled garden to me.

Speaking of walled gardens he then segues into the promise of portable open social networks? More on that in a different post.

My philosophy of online networks/media:

I like to keep my professional and personal (social) networks as separate compartments, since I don’t want traversing that thin line that separates the two; I don’t plan on mixing my movies/partying with my business networking friends although there could be a minimal overlap. So, here’s a rough outline of the two networks and my life around them

Professional
1. My Career Blog — well that’s what you’re reading. This is my primary online time consuming obsession, started over a year ago, when I last checked the feed subscriptions (WordPress doesn’t show that count any longer) I had over 800 readers
2. LinkedIn — 395 of my professional acquaintances, colleagues (present and past), contacts made through blogging, event attendances, speaking engagements, etc…

Social
Here’s a summary of the other social tools that I consume or create content for:

1. Flixster (movies; database to rate movies – don’t have any other friend who does it as regularly as I do)
2. Flickr (photos)
3. Twitter (chatter; seriously bored of it, don’t use it anymore)
4. del.ic.ous (bookmarks; have tons of links but rarely use it to find useful stuff)
5. last.fm (music; rarely use it, prefer pandora)
6. upcoming.org (events)
7. netflix (dvd rentals)
8. some of the above networks/content I can access on Facebook – 173 “friends”

So, while all this noise keeps inundating our “social” lives, there are a few who’ve already started thinking about the concept of a “portable social network”. More on this later.

So what is your social networking philosophy?