Creative Commons via Flickr Sammy0716
In the world of social media, I have become pretty comfortable. I currently use Facebook personally and professionally via multiple fan pages, Twitter in 5 different ways, WordPress for 3 blogs, Blogger for 2 blogs, Foursquare for fun and begrudgingly, LinkedIn as my electronic business card. Oh yeah, and then there is FlicKr, Picasa and YouTube.
Okay, so I might just be a social media addict.
So, when Google+ entered into the arena, I dismissed it outright.
After all, a girl with 21 social media accounts who also text messages and tries to live a pretty full life really doesn’t need “another” platform in her life, right?
But then a friend offered me an invitation and I realized that I should at least check it out. I am not good with technology. It is either easy enough for me to figure out or it isn’t. And at nearly every presentation I give, I am asked “what will be the next big thing in social media?”
Honestly, the jury is still out for me on whether Google+ will rival its competitors, but it is easy to see that full Google integration both on desktop and mobile platforms has the possibility of drawing together the patchwork quilt of accounts into one worldview. And, if it does, perhaps I’ll only need one account in the future rather than 21.
But for a girl who has gotten comfortable over the past 4 years, I’ll admit that change is scary. Just when you think you know what to do, the communications world changes slightly and we must be willing to learn and adapt in order to keep up.
For those who are just entering the world of social media, I’d still recommend staying with the social media heavyweights like Facebook and Twitter. With 750 million people now using Facebook, it’s going to take some time for Google+ to compete. But for those of us who are advising, educating and monitoring the changing landscape, we must be willing to wander outside the comfort zone and see what’s going on.
I’m with you, Cheryl…not so much out of fear…but out of exhaustion! There are only so many places where I can give my attention!
I know….having been on for a few days now, I’m exhausted myself….at some point, span of control kicks in and something is gonna have to kick out!
I was just talking to a co-worker about Google+ yesterday and about the expanding landscape of social media. Unfortunately, social networking is not like e-mail where it doesn’t matter what account you have (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, whatever), you can still communicate. Social networking only works if the people you want to talk to are using the same platform. I was happy when MySpace and Live Journal fell off the map and I could delete those accounts when people migrated to facebook. But that type of monopoly also has its drawbacks.