What’s Your Social Media Strategy?

A couple of weeks ago, I surprised someone by commenting that I was
working on my "social media strategy". The reaction was along the lines
of "who knew you'd need ... or even want ... a strategy".

As an online business person, I think it's important to not only be
aware of, and participate in various social media venues, but to
actually have a little bit of a plan.

Since that affects where and how I might show up, and if and when I
might respond to you, I figured it's only prudent to lay out my current
thinking.

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In order of how "accessible" I am:

Twitter - I have two accounts on Twitter: @askleo and @leonot.

Anyone can follow me on twitter. In fact, you're more than welcome to.

When new articles are published on Ask Leo!, they're automatically "tweeted"
to @askleo as well, so it's a convenient way to stay on top of what's new
here.

I also post to @askleo things I find that I think are of interest or
relevant to you. Typically, that's a "re-tweet" of something I've stumbled
across on Twitter itself, but it also includes links to articles and
information that I find elsewhere as well.

While @askleo is my business / tech twitter account, @leonot is my personal
one. While I rarely "tweat" (tweet what I eat), and never post about getting
out of bed, having a headache, or any of the other trivialities that most
people associate with Twitter users, @leonot gets some of the more random
things that I just can't keep to myself. I occasionally post slightly personal
comments, and my Flickr photostream is also automatically linked to the @leonot
twitter account, so when I post a new photo it shows up there.

I do not auto-follow. Unlike some, I actually try to read the
tweets of the people I follow, so I only follow those folks that I would find
interesting or would want to read. To those of you who feel that it's rude not
to follow everyone who follows you: sorry, but I disagree. Doing that would
quickly make Twitter pretty useless to me.

I can't always keep up with the full twitter stream, but I do see and read
every direct message.

Flickr - leonot

I share photos on Flickr.com. These are typically not business or Ask Leo!
related, but if you care to see photos from my most recent trips, my dogs, or
whatever else happened to be in front of my camera, this is the place to
look.

For the record, while I'm careful to retain copyright and brand most every
photo - if there's a shot there you'd like to use just ask. I'll likely say
yes, for the price of a mention.

Facebook (Ask Leo!) - ask-leo.com/fan

Ask Leo! has a fan page on Facebook, and I encourage those of you on
Facebook to become a fan or "Like" the page, as the newer terminology has
it.

On the Ask Leo! Facebook page you'll find new article notifications, the @askleo Twitter feed (on what's apparently a pretty random delay),
comments from other Facebook users, and a discussion group where I often ask
you for advice and opinions.

Facebook (me) - http://www.facebook.com/leonot

I also have a personal Facebook page, and a bunch of information from my
public profile is there for all to see.

I've elected to keep Facebook for my personal use, thus I don't accept all
Facebook friend requests. Please don't be insulted, but in order to keep
Facebook useful to me, I only accept friend request from people that I actually
know or have some kind of business or other relationship with.

My apologies to my fans who would like to connect. Fortunately, that's
exactly why the Ask Leo! page exists, so you can hook up with me there
instead.

LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/leonotenboom

I do maintain a personal profile on LinkedIn, however, once again, I only
accept link requests from people that I actually know or have some kind of
connection with. In fact, "the bar" is probably a tad higher on LinkedIn.

Other

I may have test accounts elsewhere, but pay them no mind until they're
listed here.

And for the record, I abandoned my MySpace account long ago.

Of course right now the social media landscape seems like it's in constant
flux. What's popular today may well fall by the wayside in a year or two.
That's the nature of the internet.

But I'll try to keep this strategy somewhat up to date, if and when my own
usage changes.