I’ve seen others break down their methodology on various social channels and thought it would be interesting to evaluate what I’m using, how I’m using it and the value therein.
I hope this gives you some ideas for new ways to use these networks, and I encourage you to share your own breakdown in the comments.
Also, I plan to do a post like this every year to see how the industry, and my participation, is progressing.
And to keep me from getting too long-winded or granular in my evaluations, I restricted myself to three sentences on each topic (inspired by a great creative writing blog called Six Sentences that you should subscribe to).
Most of my action on Facebook is for work, managing my company’s page every day. But personally, I rarely post status updates or spend much time reading my news feed (probably scan it about once a day for less than five minutes). My value from Facebook: it’s my job first and foremost; otherwise it’s a good way for me to share new posts on my blog, remember birthdays and contact people when phone or email aren’t options.
I tweet, personally, on average about once or twice a day: usually about social media or current events. I also tweet professionally for my company in a communications/customer service/media relations hybrid capacity. My value from Twitter is in the job (again), the information, the speed, the simplicity, the control and in the unprecedented access it provides, across the board.
Foursquare
Telling the Internet where you are and what you’re doing can be a bit risky. And despite my freak stalker experience, I check-in on Foursquare to promote businesses that I like and activities that I’m doing. I get value from the occasional specials, but mostly by reading tips and menu suggestions from other users.
Completely for professional networking and development. I keep my profile updated and log-in about once a week to check for messages and new invitations (I turned off the email notifications to clean up my inbox), stay abreast of movements and opportunities in various industries and to follow group discussions. Biggest value currently is from these group discussions (for example, I participate in a group of social media professionals in the utility industry).
Flickr
My online photo portfolio and source of inspiration for many projects. It’s a mix of professional and personal photography, but usually I’ll only post my best shots. I find value in the added exposure in the flickr community, the ability to store, display and access high-resolution images online and the aforementioned creative inspiration.
Tumblr
A grab bag of photos, notes, ideas and links. It’s pretty much reserved for more-frequent content that doesn’t make it on this blog or photos that aren’t flickr-worthy. Value of tumblr is in the simple and easy user interface and the comfort of having a self-prescribed creative place with less structure and guidelines.
Google+
Like most people, I’m still figuring out how this new channel is going to fit in with my processes. My initial take is that it looks a lot like Facebook, but it feels more personal and less like marketing-skewed. For me, I can see Google+ serving as one of the ways that I communicate with the people I really want to communicate with, and can see Facebook continuing its trajectory toward marketing and business-to-consumer communications.