Rix Bits

I recently decided to start shifting my SharePoint-related posts over to a new blog, instead of here at RixBits.com.  My main concern was that I had [at least] two very different types of content that I was producing at RixBits, and I felt it was time to stop mixing them.  SharePoint, while a very popular topic, certainly has a smaller and more specific audience than many of the other general techie topics I blog about.  I wanted to make sure that anyone coming to RixBits to read about tablet PCs, or about how Apple is overrated, would not be confused when they see a post related to SharePoint team development using InfoPath.  :)

 

But as I thought about it a little more, I realized how important the idea of multiple personalities is to social media……

 

In my presentation on how adults and business professionals can leverage Facebook, I had a slide (seen above) that addressed this.  In Facebook, I recommend that you use the FB concept of ‘Pages’ to help separate your business persona from your personal profile. I also recommend using multiple Pages when appropriate.  This is just as important, and probably even more useful, in the world of Twitter as it is in Facebook.

 

Here are some of the reasons why it’s a good idea to use different profiles/personalities in your social media world:

• As ego-blowing as it may sound, I suspect very few of your followers are actually interested in ALL of the many hats you wear.  The overwhelming majority probably tolerate your posts on other topics while they wait for you to discuss the idea for which they originally chose to follow you.
  
  
• It gives you the freedom to represent your topic more passionately when you know that anyone following you did so specifically to hear your views on that specific topic.
  
  
• The social media tools available to us these days actually make it very easy to manage multiple accounts/personalities across different social media platforms. This, plus the specificity that each of your accounts implies, means you can feel more confident about your posts without wondering if there’s someone listening for whom it might not be appropriate.
  
  
• Cross-posting between your personalities provides additional exposure to your ideas.
  
  
• For business owners, this becomes even more crucial – wrapping your personal image together with your business is probably only a good idea for movie stars and fashion models. :)
  
  

To those who would claim this as being unauthentic, I would say that in fact this is called focused marketing.  Each of my social media personalities is genuine in the context of the topic or idea that I’m representing with that personality.  And it provides a service to your followers, allowing them to decide the terms on which they follow you – whether they add you to their custom Twitter List, to their Facebook filter group, a certain folder in their RSS feeds, or any number of other options.  As our attempt to control our social media intake grows increasingly more complex, certainly we can all see the value of a little good old-fashioned segmentation. :)