Chris Spagnuolo’s EdgeHopper

I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow I’ve got accounts on at least 12 different social media/networking sites in addition to my blog. Like most people these days, I’m on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I also use some others like Flickr for social pix, Squidoo for social everything and Dopplr for socializing my travel plans. I’m even on Starbucks’ V2V, which connects people and inspires them to contribute to a cause greater than themselves, for social goodness.  Each one has it’s own area that it is really good at. And, I use each site for different reasons. But what I’ve tried very hard not to do is replicate content across the sites. I feel that that would dilute the value of the content and my personal brand. For instance, I don’t stream my Tweets to my blog’s sidebar and I’ve discontinued streaming them wholesale to my Facebook page (I use Tweetdeck’s FaceBook integration to choose which Tweets get posted to my FaceBook status).

I think too many people are merely replicating their social media content in every way possible these days. I don’t know about you, but that makes me not want to look at someone’s Facebook page if all it is is their Twitter stream. In my opinion, keep your social media sites slightly segregated. Keep your content distributed amongst them, but not replicated. This gives you a wider platform to speak and be heard from. My advice is to come up with a strategy for how you’re using each site and what kind of interaction and content you’re going to put in each place so as to maximize your personal brand. Here’s how I’m using each of my four main social media sites:

1. My Edgehopper.com Blog: I use this for posting extended content. When I want to discuss things in depth and generate good discussions, I’ll write a blog post. Some are longer. Some are shorter. Some are heavily researched. Some are quick writes. I also love posting great design and presentation examples on my blog. In any case, my blog is my forum and I love to write there. It’s where I can share the most information how and when I like to.

2. @ChrisSpagnuolo on Twitter: I love Twitter and I use it to connect with the wider social media world. I connect with everyone I can here. I love the amazing flow of information and the conversations I can have here. I also use it to share the interesting, valuable and fun things that I find on blogs and across the web. I also use it to get answers to questions from a wide variety of people. And yes, I sometimes use it to promote my blog posts, but not gratuitously.

3. Chris Spagnuolo on Facebook: This is what I consider to be my “private” social media space. It’s where I can connect with family and the people I consider to be close friends (and apparently a steady stream of high school friends too…is Facebook the new Classmates.com?). There’s so much personal stuff I put on Facebook that I feel a bit uncomfortable “sharing” it with everyone. So, if you try connecting with me on Facebook and I ignore your request, it’s nothing personal, unless you’re family and I’m ignoring you for a reason .  I also don’t cross post my Tweets there because the things my family and friends are interested in are not the same things my Twitter followers are interested in and vice versa.

4. Chris Spagnuolo on LinkedIn: LinkedIn is where I conduct my professional social media life. I connect with everyone on LinkedIn that is in the software development industry, as well as with graphic designers, project managers, and corporate executives. I focus heavily on agile software development there. I also participate heavily in discussion groups for software architects, project managers, and agile groups. I even have my own group called Agilistas that I moderate and manage. In addition, I help my company, Rally Software Development, manage and run their own LinkedIn group. From time to time I post questions in the discussion groups on LinkedIn that provide the “research” basis for some of my blog posts. I’m a lot more professional here than I am on Twitter.

So, as you can see, I have a widespread social media face that looks a little different depending on the outlet. I feel this broadens my personal brand without diluting it. What I’ve managed to do is connect with 766 people on LinkedIn, over 60,000 on Twitter, have over 57,000 regular subscribers to my blog, and just over 275 friends on Facebook. That’s a decent-sized network made up mostly of people that do NOT overlap for the most part. And if they do happen to overlap, they’re getting new, different, and fresh content in each place they follow me. That’s what I consider extending personal branding without diluting it.

I’m interested in other strategies for maximizing personal branding via social media without dilution. How do you manage your social media brand?