As the world changes, so should the way we interact with it. Very general statement for sure (I sense a few “duhs” coming from those who are reading this.). I find my used of tools to help me get work done also changes.

Sometime ago, Facebook released new profile pages for users. Twitter released its new layout of its website last summer. Google is constantly tweaking its search indexing algorithm.

Getting more value from LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn has been evolving, too. One of the ways they’ve evolved over time is through groups. We even have one for the New Media Cincinnati social media networking group.  When groups first came out, I and others saw this as an opportunity for people to essentially post content that may or may not have been valuable to it.

Over time, I became inundated with messages and discussions that I really wasn’t interested in. Nevertheless, I liked being associated with certain groups. Some, however, I decided to leave because I couldn’t find value in them.

Over the past year, I’ve been striving to get more value from the LinkedIn groups I’ve joined. Many group managers are now moderating groups to make sure that content posted in them are relevant to the audience. We have Group Rules on the New Media Cincinnati group that bring people back toward creating discussion versus self-sharing content.  Members of LinkedIn groups can also flag content to alert moderators.  So it’s gotten much better over the past year.

Here are three ways I’ve recently gotten more value from my involvement as a group member:

1. Connect with other like-minded people. When inviting others to connect with me, LinkedIn knows if I share a group with them, and they offer me that group connection as a way to say that we “know one another”.  We have what I like to call a “pre-existing connection”.

In addition, LinkedIn lets you invite others to the group with an “Invite Others” link, currently near the upper right corner of the main group page.

2. Participate in discussions. Discussions are items, questions, links, etc., that are posted to LinkedIn groups. Effectively used, these items are designed to have others comment.

3. Learn about jobs. Many of the groups I’m involved with have a job board where members can post jobs that may or may not have been posted elsewhere.

Here’s a video that shows how you can use groups on LinkedIn (click here if you can’t see the embedded video):

What are some ways you’ve gotten more value from LinkedIn groups?

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Google Doodle for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Today is the day the United States has set aside to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Among many things, he is known for his “I Have A Dream” speech he made at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963.

Here’s an excerpt:

Today we are more connected to one another than ever. In his e-book “Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Re-invent Yourself,” Seth Godin says that social media can be “a crack in the wall between you and the rest of the world. It’s a choice… up to you.”

Right now, it’s possible for us to stay in touch and learn about other cultures, other races. We no longer live in isolation. We no longer have to live in distrust of one another because of skin color or nationality.

We no longer live that way because, through the power of the connectedness we share, we are that much closer to living Martin’s dream.

Update, 9/14/2011: I saw this on Julien Smith’s blog and have to share it. Not quite related to the tone of this post, but it really opens up my eyes:

Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did

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Much of what happens in the new media space is highly experimental; especially when new tools are released. Google Buzz came out last week, and we talked about it at last weekend’s New Media Cincinnati Second Saturday. There are a lot of things that need to be worked through, and there are certainly some promising things for it.

I noticed C.C. Chapman (someone  I so look forward to meeting in-person someday) had started a “Morning Buzz” bit with an extended update over at his buzz page. I thought this was a neat idea and have started to play around with it this way myself. I call these early morning updates “uncaffeinated buzz”, because I write them when I first get up in the morning, before having any coffee.

It feels uninhibited and freeing, and I feel like it’s helping me find (or reclaim) my voice. I’ve thought about bringing these buzz posts over here and using them as blog posts. Or maybe it will just be a bonus for those of you who are following me over there.

Make it a great day!

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I’ve been asked a number of times recently in the local Cincinnati community about how the different social networking platforms relate to one another and why someone would want to participate in any or all of them.

There are a lot of parallels to our online and offline lives.  Consider your presence online as participating in a digital neighborhood. It’s your digital neighborhood, consisting of all the places where you hang out. These analogies could probably be fleshed out a bit further, but go with me on this, okay?

Office

The office is where business gets conducted. Transactions are processed.  The office is the company’s website. I don’t currently work for a company, so I’ll point to the official New Media Cincinnati website for the time being.

Home

If the company website is the office, then the blog is the more informal hangout, where guests are welcome to come and hang out, join in on discussions. If we had a cold one, we’d offer it to you, etc. Have you seen the pictures of the family? Chances are, you’ve stopped by my “home” to read this post. Welcome!

Business Meeting

LinkedIn is analogous to the business meeting. It’s where business connections get made, and (typically) professional types of discussions happen. Think of it as the Chamber or Association meeting. Are we connected over there?

Office Watercooler/Conference Call

From time to time we need to get up from our desks and head to the break room and chat with other coworkers. At other times, we have conference calls to be on, where we’re talking about a specific topic, or the conversation has a common sort of context.  That’s what Twitter is.  We hop in to share some information, ask questions, and so forth. We also can share information around specific topics with hashtags (for specific chats or events).

Backyard Fence

Remember those chats with your neighbors along your backyard fence as you’re hanging out in your yard? Pretty casual and very friendly.  Facebook is the digital equivalent of the backyard fence. Let your hair down a bit and kick your shoes off if you want.

Other places?

I’m sure there are other parts of our digital neighborhood I’m missing, and maybe you can help to develop the analogy even further. Where would sites like Foursquare fit in? What would be the grocery store or shopping mall? The library?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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I’ve been a part of an interesting discussion on Facebook recently about where to draw the line between personal and business use of social media, and it prompted me to share these thoughts about strategies for managing an online presence.

You are a brand

Everyone who comes in contact with you in-person or online leaves with an idea of who you are as a result of the experience.  While what happens in real-life might be fleeting or temporary, what happens online sticks around.  Many of us have camera phones that can take pictures or video and upload them with ease to the internet.  Did you just get tagged in a career-limiting photo on Facebook? Or did someone capture that great picture of you helping someone out in your community?

Is what you do online adding to or detracting from your personal brand?

Some points to keep in mind:

• Everyone’s use of social media will vary, and that’s okay. It’s a free world.
• Know your goals in developing and maintaining an online presence. These will dictate how you use the tools.
• Your goals may and probably will change over time. So will your use of the tools.
• Don’t expect to stay on top of everything. You’re only able to sample a bit of information at a time. You can set up monitoring stations, for sure. That’s a topic for another blog post.

Strategies

With these points in mind, here are six strategies you can employ to develop and manage an online presence:

1. Dump it. There are times when you no longer need or want to have that blog, account, etc. It might be worthwhile to just delete the account altogether.
2. Shelve it. Maybe you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling with your blog, account, etc., but you’re not quite ready to delete it. Maybe you’ll get back to it sometime; maybe you won’t. So you leave it alone for another day. Over the past 7 years or so, I’ve created over 10 blogs. Most of them lie dormant now or have moved to another space.
3. Anonymize it. There are advantages and disadvantages of setting up an anonymous online presence. On one hand, you have virtual free reign in what you can say and do without having it come back against you. Some folks opt for this strategy by using a pseudonym or nickname. On the other hand, you aren’t able to transfer the equity in your online brand into your offline career. But maybe that’s not your goal in the first place. Maybe you want to have one account for everyone and another, more private account where you can say whatever you want to say.  I started off using a nickname on some social networks but later opted to use a more distinct form of my real name.
4. Merge them. If you have multiple accounts, blogs, etc., maybe they’ve become overwhelming for you. Maybe you want to present a clearer message across one social networking presence. In this case, it might be worthwhile to merge.
5. Link them. If you still want to keep multiple online identities, then consider linking them to one another, so that others can know where you are. I do that with blogs and in my Virtual Business Card.  Something like this is useful if you’ve signed up with different usernames on different platforms. It’s also useful, for example, if you leave one blogging platform, for another, to cross-link the two.
6. Aggregate them. Similar to linking, another strategy is to aggregate your multiple presences using a tool like FriendFeed. This place becomes a one-stop shop for everything you put online.

So remember that what you do online says a lot about who you are – or who we think you are.  How you decide to use social networking tools is completely up to you, and your goals should dictate how you use them, and there are different strategies you can employ.

Agree? Disagree? Did I miss anything? What other strategies have you found useful?

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