Reflections on rearranging my social media

I've had an RSS reader for years. I originally used it when doing research for my Masters. It was a highly useful tool as I was researching things that were 'of the moment'. Now I use it for keeping up to date with things 'of the moment'.

The trouble is, I now have more than 50 feeds....and do I keep up with all of them? No. But do I want to trash some of them? ...ummm...that would be No. Because I might find them useful sometime! :-)

Forrester's ladder of participation classifies 6 categories - creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives. I fit into 5 of these categories. I started out as a collector...now I'm all of the active categories.

What this means for me is that I now have lots of things to maintain...and I find that it's the housekeeping and interior design that's always on my 'to-do' list.

For example - make my blog look nice and express who I am, add some fun gadgets; for delicious - tidy up my tags (I think I have too many); for Flickr, upload, tag and sort my images, remember to Twitter, check my Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

I'm wondering what I did with my time before social media...

Finding moments to add to my blog

One of the challenges I face in my work is keeping up to date, and writing my blog.

I view blogging and engaging in social media as an integral part of what I do as a virtual communications professional. If I don't understand it and know what it means, how will I be able to initiate strategies and lead a team in making projects happen?

I like to have something well-thought-out to say. I'm going to change this slightly, as it's inhibiting me writing posts. Sometimes it's about just starting something and seeing what happens next. Even it it's shorter.

So - I just found a great little badge on Lee Hopkin's SL blog - it's a badge that integrates with Flickr. I use my Flickr account to store all the images I take in my travels around Second Life (this too, is missing some updating!). So I've added it to my blog gadgets.

Here's to my continued blogging!