Intarsia Concept

Social Networking Junkie's Lament

Hi. My name is Tara and I'm a social media junkie.

I love signing up for service after service to get connected all across the web.

But I'm suffering from "profile fatigue" - entering the same personal information over and over.

Online reputation management experts say we should keep our profiles current and connected in order to maintain brand consistency, but I can't remember all the things I've signed up for.

I've got four blogs which each have a Twitter account, three Facebook pages, and one website not to mention being on LinkedIn. And this doesn't even begin to reference the social bookmarking communities, social niche networks, and other places I congregate on the web.

At the moment a colleague and I are collaborating on an article and at the end we have a note to ourselves:

"Add our links here."

If I added all of them we would go over our 1,000 word limit.

Exasperated I tiptoed over to my Google Profile and put all the links in there.

And then added just one link to the end of our article.

But I would still love to know - 

How have you solved the problem of profile fatigue?

The Joy of the (Social) Network

Thursdays are turning into a look at using social networking as a professional tool, so I'm going to continue with the series this week...

Snowman Gift Tags from Mae Armstrong Designs

CC BY 2.0

On Monday I announced that we are accepting submissions for our first ever IC Holiday Gift Guide. In the past I've submitted our Nest products to similar guides and I really like the idea. So I thought it would be a fun way to recognize all of the creative entrepreneurs in our community.

To demonstrate how social networking entered the picture, let me briefly explain what I did after writing Monday's post.

My Strategy

1. Tweet the post and ask for retweets
2. Post an invitation to relevant groups I belong to on LinkedIn
3. Post a note to members of various creative and professional forums I belong to
4. Send an update to followers of our Facebook Page
5. Continue to tweet the invitation daily

Results

- I received over 20 submissions in the first two days from each of the places I posted the invitation

- Most responses were from people I hadn't yet connected with, so I met new people

- I learned about new products and services that creative entrepreneurs are offering

- I was also introduced to some cool non-profit organizations with holiday giving campaigns (they are creative *social* entrepreneurs)

- I now have the foundation for a diverse gift guide that will contain suggestions for meaningful gifts for the holidays

Conclusions

What shouldn't surprise me, though it continually does, is how powerful networks are. On top of that is how powerful social networking platforms are. Using technology to connect with people brings me a lot of joy and reinforces how useful the technology can be in developing meaningful professional relationships.

What is your experience with using social networks to build your creative business?

It's not too late to submit your product or service for the gift guide. The deadline is Sunday, December 6th and I'll post the guide on Monday the 7th. Read this post for simple submission guidelines.

Measuring to Move Forward

There's been a lot of talk about numbers lately, especially as Twitter has come out with lists. You can't help but take note of how many lists you're on and then start looking around at how many lists other people are on. Gwen Bell talks about all that hoopla a bit in this post. I like her take on things, so it's worth a look, but I'd like to have a different look at using numbers to make progress.

This morning I was reading Maria Shriver's thoughts on the comprehensive study published on A Woman's Nation. She says:

"Our report breaks new ground by taking a hard look at how women's changing roles are also affecting our major societal institutions: our government, businesses, religious and faith institutions, educational system, the media, and even men and marriage. And we examine how all these parts of the culture have responded to one of the greatest social transformations of our time. We look at where we are and where we should go from here."

And that made me think about the topic of numbers again, and how they can be useful rather than diminutive (as in when you are comparing yourself to others). What if you use numbers to "look at where you are and where you should go from here?"

So, here's the idea, and it builds on the post I wrote last week about goals.

Let's say one of your goals is something numerically measurable.  Let's say you want to appear on 10 new lists a month in order to start building your network.  Here's how goal-setting and numbers would work in your favor.

1. Set your start and end period and take a measurement at the beginning of the time frame to see where you are.

2. Determine the frequency with which you plan to measure the growth of your list appearances - in this case I'd recommend weekly in order to hit your monthly targets.

3. Take periodic measurements according to your plan and compare these against your goal - how do they measure up? Are you going where you had planned to go?

4. If you are on track with your goal, keep doing whatever it is that's working. If you are lagging behind your goal, brainstorm a list of at least five things you can do to change the situation.

5. Don't quit until you've reached your goal or until you reach the end period and need to reevaluate the process.

If you use numbers this way, you won't be at all concerned about anyone else's numbers because you'll be focused solely on your own progress.

Set big goals and complete them with purpose. They'll be easier to stick to if you're motivated by something meaningful.

(P.S. If you find yourself stuck on #4 and need help brainstorming, let me know, I love solving these kinds of puzzles.)