Is your face linked in to my space?

Picture_9 Okay, I need a little help. FacebookMySpaceLinkedInSquidoo.  Etc. etc.

Is it just a bunch of busy work to maintain them all?  Or, am I going to be sorry if I miss out on one now?

Picture_10 Paul Jacobson over at BizTips asks if Facebook is the new LinkedIn.  Does that make LinkedIn the old MySpace?

How are they different?  Do I really need them all?  Do I need any of them? How should I use them? How do you use them? 

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16 comments on “Is your face linked in to my space?

  1. Chuck says:

    It’s not that much work to maintain Myspace or Facebook after you set it up. It’s not like a blog where you have to update it very frequently or people will think it died. Myspace and Facebook are free brand promotion targeted at people who are receptive to it.

  2. Jake Nudge says:

    I don’t think its fair to compare LinkedIn with Myspace and Facebook as it works on a much different level. The idea behind LinkedIn is professional networks (people you have worked with, etc), where as the other two are social based (friends). But I agree with Chuck, its really not that much work to maintain them..

  3. Drew,

    I agree with Chuck that it’s not too hard to maintain Facebook or MySpace pages once they’re set-up. Actually, I don’t do much with my MySpace because Facebook has a cleaner interface and (thankfully) no blaring music whenever I visit someone’s site.

    Facebook can easily suck you in, but the trick is to get it going, and then to tell it to send you notifications when people contact you. Then you can almost forget about it, while still being involved.

    Right now, I’m of two minds about using Facebook. On the one hand, it’s my way of connecting with friends from college, home and my study abroad. I’m very protective of that because I don’t see many of those people often and I want it to be an open space for us.

    On the other hand, Facebook is much more interactive than LinkedIn and (I think) could become widely used by business professionals who want a better way to connect with each other online. It allows us to show more of our personality, to put up photos/podcasts/videos/links, and is more flexible for connecting with people. For example, people could put up photos from conferences and “tag” participants–which would be a fun way to connect people. I highly recommend it for those reasons.

    The only issue is that it’s hard for us youngsters to keep our personal lives and professional lives separate. Great as my mom is, I don’t want her reading everything my friends write!

    My solution, at least until Facebook comes up with a better option, is to separate my personal and professional identities by creating two accounts. (Work and personal lives were always separate before the Facebook, so I don’t see why they should be combined on it.)

    Luckily, you will only need the one account! But you should get the Facebook one at least because it looks like that’s where a lot of people are going.

    And if you have any questions about how to create it, or what to do, I’ll be happy to walk you through. 🙂

    By the way, I just wrote a blog post about the “agony” of getting a Friend invite from my MOM on Facebook. You might get a kick out of it:
    http://www.getfreshminds.com/2007/06/a.html

  4. Kevin Dugan says:

    Drew – MySpace has never appeared to have a business slant to it as best I can tell. Facebook is very easy to use and seems to blend business with personal – a bit more casual than LinkedIn.

    Facebook seems to be much more interactive than LinkedIn.

    I’ll argue to have a LinkedIn and a Facebook account. Once each one is set up and email notifications are created, upkeep is as little or as much as you wish. But the main reason why is I anecdotally feel that with Facebook’s roots being collegiate, you’re networking with the future workforce there. At LinkedIn, I’ll argue (with no proof) that the demographics skew a bit older.

  5. Drew,
    Think of some of these places as major hubs where in your profile you link to your other sites and profiles on the web. Pick the hubs that you like and are relevant to you, and maintain them only on a casual basis. The more interconnected you are between them all, the greater the chance people (and search engines) will discover the other aspects of brand you.

  6. Hi Drew,

    Here’s my take on Squidoo…

    I built several lenses (or pages) on Squidoo the day Seth Godin launched it. Here’s why I like Squidoo:

    1. It’s easy.
    2. It takes very little time to create a lens
    3. It’s co-op based meaning the money you make goes to charity (or to your own pocket, if you prefer).
    4. Google loves Squidoo; getting discovered is easy.
    5. Once a lens is created, you can pretty much leave it alone.

    Now…the Google part.

    Since I specialize in producing corporate videos, if you type “corporate videos” into Google, my Squidoo lens usually appears at #6, or the top ten. “So what?” some may ask.

    Well, Squidoo definitely helps boost my blog readership, since my lenses point to my blog. It also has generated incredible film work for me, too.

    Not too shaby for free, zero maintenance and funding charities. 🙂

  7. Jake and Chuck,

    It’s not the ease of use that I question. I have accounts on them all. They just feel a little redundant to me.

    My real question is — how many of these do I need and do they all serve the same purpose?

    Drew

  8. Katie,

    Your post was hysterical. It’s the exact opposite of how I felt when my teenaged daughter invited me to be her friend on MySpace. I was stunned. And felt a little cool.

    So…are you saying I am too old to worry about my parents reading my escapades??

    Drew

  9. Tom,

    Yes…finishing up my Squidoo lens has been on my To Do list for about a month. I know its easy, I just haven’t gotten around to getting it done.

    Interesting that you see a lot of traffic from it. I agree…the charity part is a nice feature!

    Drew

  10. Kevin,

    My assessment pretty much matches yours. I have a MySpace page mostly so I can help my teenager navigate those waters.

    I do think LinkedIn and Facebook have many similarities and overlap. But each one is unique enough that you can’t quite toss either of them.

    It will be interesting to see how it all plays out or if a new app will sneak in and scoop them all!

    Drew

  11. Mario,

    Good point. And I think one of the aspects that is leading to my questions.

    Ideally, one hub. I know, too much to ask. SO if not one, then how many is enough? Must I jump on the bandwagon of every networking app out there?

    Because both you and I know, we’ve only seen the beginning. Remember when AOL was pretty much everyone’s internet provider??

    Drew

  12. jonjonson says:

    Drew,

    I think it is very necessary to separate your business network from your personal networks. It would be retarded to start 2 facebook accounts. Facebook is not business focused however it is great at how it connects people together. I think a user of many different networks will always have to use and maintain separate networks just as they do in real life.

  13. Jon,

    Okay…let’s say I decide that LinkedIn is my professional network and FaceBook is my personal one.

    In my head.

    But my work colleagues start adding me as a friend in Facebook or my family starts adding me to LinkedIn.

    How do you suggest handling that? Just not approve the request?

    Drew

  14. Drew,
    I just wrote about this the other day. After that over 20 people who I had sent requests to join my LinkedIn community agreed. I don’t have a Facebook page yet but I am working on the idea.

    I love Squidoo – it has done wonders for my Google search rankings. When I started my blog it got even better. I try to use them in tandem.

    My list of sites – 32 so far: http://drrogera.bravejournal.com

  15. Paul says:

    My observations are restricted to Facebook and LinkedIn, as those are the only two real contenders for a professional network.

    One thing I try to keep in mind is that those of us who are Social Media literate and especially part of the blogosphere are not that representative of most of the rest of the world. Many of us are early adopters, and not afraid to try something and quickly discard it and move on. Most of the business world does not work this way. What I’ve tried to convey below is partly my own perception of what the sites are good at, but also the more general perceptions that I’ve heard from other business connections that are just considering getting in.

    With that said, Facebook is the up-and-comer. It is very hot on the west coast and with college kids, but not so much elsewhere. It has more flexibility and functionality for creating “social” groups. One thing that is very problematic from a business perspective is that there is much less protection for your privacy. That tends not to be a problem for young people or those just starting their careers, but the farther up the ladder you move, the more protective you are, and the last thing you want is every sales person in the world having access to personal data that they can misuse. You can block some people from having access to some of your data, but that just makes things harder to manage, so I suspect few do.

    LinkedIn does not have pictures, which is a big plus or big minus depending on what you want to use it for. Because no one else needs to know the nature of the people on your contact list, it doesn’t matter whether they are personal or professional, and frankly, by my age, most of the people I would add to LinkedIn are both. The model of permission-based mediated introductions is the way the real world works. i.e. I don’t rifle through your rolodex (or Outlook contact folder) and collect data to connect with whoever I want, but if I’m looking for some help or advice, I might call you as someone that I think has knowledge, or is a trusted friend, and ask you if you know, or if anyone you know could help. If it sounds like you’re open and you think they might be open, you would facilitate an introduction to the right person, and they would likely accept a call from me then because they trust you. That’s the way LinkedIn works. Therefore, if you were only to choose one, I would go with LinkedIn — it is more likely to have the people that you’d like to connect with, and the way it works is more businesslike. LinkedIn is also heavily used by recruiters, so working professionals have a lot more to gain by being part of it for long term career management than from Facebook. (One thing to keep in mind about recruiters is that most companies that are searching for candidates don’t want to see a picture because they don’t want anything that suggests discrimination in the hiring process — which is why if they ever see a resume with a picture on it, it is almost immediately tossed in the trash. Therefore, as the site without pictures, but with structured career data, LinkedIn is the place recruiters will search.)

    For the above reasons, LinkedIn definitely skews older, and to most people who are above 35-40 and aren’t quite as comfortable with all this newfangled social stuff, it appears safer and more valuable, therefore they are more likely to join it, if and when they join anything. (I’ve seen a surprising resistance among some people 45 and older who just see no point, and don’t want their information anywhere.)

    Facebook has more than twice the subscribers as LinkedIn, but I think the above assessment that it is the “new MySpace” is a better characterization than saying it can replace LinkedIn.

    Hope that helps.

  16. Eric,

    That’s sort of the challenge, isn’t it? They all have merit. Each does something a little different or a little better.

    I want the mashup!

    Drew

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