socialmedian: Twitter, Facebook, Digg: Can You Join Too Many Networks?

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Twitter, Facebook, Digg: Can You Join Too Many Networks?

Source: Delicious hotlist

Dec 16, 2008

Summary

There are literally thousands of social networks on the web right now, but which ones should you join?

Many people have spread out their personal brands on too many networks and are now unable to manage their existence on all of them. As the number of social networks grows (more startups) and shrinks (economic downsizing), we must be smarter about which ones we join and which ones we ignore. Today, we’ll go over a simple method you can use to figure out which social networks to participate in so your brand is visible and easily manageable across the web.

Comments (15)

Lspearmanii,

Dec 17, 2008

yes you can

Nigelwalsh,

Dec 17, 2008

hell yes.. You can spend your life managing them all. There seems to be many new sites trying to aggregate or create presentation mashups, but this to me also fails. You join some networks for their cool UI, look and feel and more importantly where your community of friends and business contacts exists. Seeing facebook or LI in Netvibes doesn't have the cool bits that they have been adding periodically.

Its almost the same as having MSN, Skype, AIM, Yahoo and all the other messaging/chat clients on your desktop. Do you use them all or do you use one client that can talk to all your friends...

Ajay,

Dec 17, 2008

@alpesh @ketan good one

Thomaspower,

Dec 17, 2008

It's impossible to join too many networks I can't join enough.

Christinekerner,

Dec 17, 2008

Great article...

Mohall24,

Dec 17, 2008

Seems to be pros and cons to the question, as with most things in life. I'm having issues managing the ones I'm into now, but when another cool one comes out, I'll be sure to check it out :).. got a couple of beta invites out now.

Nigelwalsh,

Dec 18, 2008

@thomaspower - interesting view, how do you manage or sync them all - or do you not? is there a difference between a facebook friend and a linkedin connection? If there is no differentiation, in your view what’s the value of them both?

Lemonknickers,

Dec 18, 2008

if you make use of flash widgets and use a service like profilatic you can keep a constant sort of fresh content/alerts/update s etc. on every social networking site you join so many sites becomes one site

Lemonknickers,

Dec 18, 2008

@nigelwalsh if you have a group of 10 biz people on linkedin and ten on Ning and each prefers to stick to their own social network, a widget can get the message out to all biz friends be they on either site - so it's more eyeballs.

Greghollingsworth,

Dec 18, 2008

absolutely, positively, no. You can't join too many networks, and you shouldn't not join a network because it's just one more network.

Now, it isn't possible to be fully engaged in a lot of different networks, at least I don't think it is. Think of it this way, there were many other news networks before S|M came along, if I would have said, man, not another network, forget it, I wouldn't have found this great community.

There's no reason not to join, but definitely reasons not to continue taking part.

Krishanna,

Dec 19, 2008

There are literally thousands of social networks on the web right now, but which ones should you join?

Eristoddle,

Dec 20, 2008

A great outline on streamlining your social media activities.

Deusdiabolus,

Dec 21, 2008

I'm sure I have already.

Paulswansen,

Jan 01, 2009

I think its more a question of managing your presence on the plethora of networks out there. I'm still of the mind to be able to post once to many. Now to figure out how all of the networks I belong to are all strung together.

Andrewshuttleworth,

Jan 17, 2009

Some good common sense advice on choosing which social networks to join (for those who haven't already been through the time investment of working this out).