The Subtle Influence

Layers of Social Media Presence #hcsm

I've been tweeting about how I use different Social Media networks and decided I should have a longer post about all the thoughts I have on the topic instead of doling it out in 140 character disjointed thoughts. Before I start, I do want to say that this is the way I use the different networks and what has worked for me over the past few years. Your mileage my vary and you may find that another way works better.

First the different services I use on a regular basis:

1. Twitter

Open network, I live-tweet talks, post professional links and some personal information. It's the most open of all the ones I use, since anyone with an internet connection can see everything I post. If someone chooses to, they can even get text updates every time I tweet.

My tendency is to keep the stream professional and to talk to other people on Twitter who are in the industries that I'm involved in.

2. Blogs (Professional at www.thesubtleinfluence.com and Personal at chiah.posterous.com)

Open networks, I blog on social marketing, mobile, communities, healthcare at www.thesubtleinfluence.com and whatever I find interesting at chiah.posterous.com. The personal blog reflects my interests in technology, food, and what I'm looking at that seems relevant to people who know me.

I also guest blog on other properties, usually I match the tone and writing to the style that has already been established.

3. LinkedIn

Professional network of people I've worked with. For me LinkedIn is a way for me to keep track of my professional network.

3. Facebook

The most personal of all the networks that I use. This is where I have more photos, interests, and interact with people I already know.

The way I look at the different networks is how do I want to use them and also what is the social norm on each. Twitter is a large public gathering place where lots of conversations are happening at the same time. My blogs are public speaking forums where I can put ideas out into the world. LinkedIn is for keeping in touch with professional contacts. Facebook is for friends and family.

What I put into my Facebook network will not be appropriate for LinkedIn and perhaps vice versa. I choose not to share who I had drinks with on the open networks, as a general rule. 

If I were a health provider, I would choose to not link to patients on Facebook. LinkedIn would be a gray area. Blogs and Twitter would be open but I would not discuss any personally identifying information on those networks. If a patient were to contact me through an open network, I would politely direct them into a private communication channel. If a patient were to contact me through Facebook, I would decline the link and add in a brief sentence that I use this for close friends and family only.

On a blog or Twitter post, I would encourage people to communicate specifics privately but be willing to have general discussions.

I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts or experiences other people have had or ways you're using these networks.

Rockmelt, the New Social Browser Experience

           Rockmelt Icon

Got an invite to Rockmelt this afternoon courtesy of Kurt Collins (@timesync) and since it is supposed to be the new social web experience, I downloaded it. First though, I had to get through the slightly confusing invite experience. If I were not on the phone with Kurt while he was inviting me we may not have figured out how it worked. You send an invite to a friend, that friend has to click on www.rockmelt.com, connect via Facebook Connect, and agree to use Facebook Connect to sign up for beta. The original inviter then has to go back into Rockmelt and click "hook'em up" once the friend's name shows up.

Rockmelt crashed the first time I launched the browser, which is always a bad way to start with a new program. I opened up the two webmail systems that I use and another tab in the same window for browsing. I sign in to Twitter three times and get the ever spinning circle. The Facebook integration is better, it is fairly robust, meaning I saw status messages.

My major complaint is performance since when I was running those 3 tabs, the browser froze and took my MacBook with it. I had to quit Rockmelt and restart the computer before I could type in to other services, like Seesmic Desktop or Safari. The second complaint I have is I was looking for people to invite and clicked on a few names on the side. I couldn't tell who was already in the system and didn't want to send duplicates to people who likely already had an invite from other friends. Wouldn't you know, even without hitting the button that sends a message, just because I clicked on a Facebook friend's name from the invite box meant that I ACTUALLY INVITED THEM. It also meant that I couldn't remember who I invited because I THOUGHT I was just testing out the invite functionality so the system would prompt me for confirmation. I had to search through the list and look for the "Follow up" button to see who the lucky three were and then actually send messages. One person that I inadvertently invited would never even bother downloading this and I knew that. I had clicked on their name to see what the invite behavior of Rockmelt was for someone who I knew would not have been in the first wave of invites vs people I suspected were already in the system. 

Bottom line,my assessment is it's too early to see what the best practices are for making browsing social and it's unclear if Rockmelt has it right. From the way they are handling invites, I think there's a long way to go before the experience becomes one that I'd want to use every day. They do have a great icon though, I have to admit.

More to come later, when I have had a little more time to play with it.