Early this summer, I started an experimental blog called OrangeJackass.com. It is a compendium of ideas, grouped into two categories, Sweet and Stupid.

One of the Stupid ideas was Twitter Reciprocal Following. Mind you, I don’t prejudge anything without experimenting and evaluating it first. However, it quickly became apparent that Twitter Reciprocal Following is a patently stupid idea. The OrangeJackass twitter account quickly amassed over one thousand followers, yet nobody said “boo!” to me. Worse, the click-through rates on my links were abysmal.

Unfortunately, as part of my experiment, I infected my main Twitter account. I will admit that I thought it would be pretty cool to “boost” my follower count. Sort of like Norman Osborn or any other mad scientist… So, I’ve been following a bunch of people I don’t even know, burying my friends in an avalanche of noise. An interesting graph depicting the typical break-down of followers can be found on Michael O’Connor Clarke’s Uninstalled blog.

Ironically, these systems keep adding followers, even when you supposedly opt-out. In fact, one unscrupulous service hijacked my twitter account! Therein lies the simple secret for regaining control.

Change your twitter password!

I’ve been writing a fair number of posts about social media. I never expected to come up with a new way to use it.
Now, I’m not saying I created this concept. In fact, what I’m about to describe happens all day, every day on social media sites.

I Wrote Something!

I use Twitter. At least once per minute, someone will send a message like this:

Just updated my blog: 5 Reasons to (not) Drink Coffee, http://snipr.com/5k4xb*

If I want to follow along with that blog, I have several options:

• Add it to bloglines.com
• Stumble it
• Add it to Feedly via Firefox
• Bookmark it in Firefox
• Tag it with my PhraseExpress *cool autotext keyword

While any of these will link the blog to my thought space, they are not really effective at pushing future posts onto my radar scope.

The Bookshelf or the Coffee Table?

When I consider the large number of blogs that I have found interesting, I realize that they fall into two categories: authority and personality.

Blogs with personality are saved using the same bookmarking schemes that I use for authority blogs.

The problem is that authority blogs are more like reference books. I’ll keep them on a bookshelf until needed.

Personality blogs are like my favorite magazines. I want to keep these on my coffee table, within easy reach from my comfy sofa.

This Blogger is Cool!

I’m going to start following bloggers on Twitter. Whether you are an authority or a personality, I’ll be more likely to read your post for the simple reason that I’m on Twitter far more than I’m on Feedly or Bloglines.

If I don’t follow you yet, Six Degrees of Separation, Cosmic Karma or Google will probably connect us, somehow. That’s how I found @UMLGuy, who inspired my post, Racing Around the Office.

I’m not advocating that bloggers start tweeting about every single post. I think that just seeing your regular tweets will be enough to prompt a visit now and then. After all, magazines don’t need to put their entire table of contents on the cover!

Coffee Table Rules

Although reference books can languish, forgotten, on bookshelves, old, tired magazines get tossed out.

Here’s where Twitter beats the pants off of feed readers like Bloglines and Feedly. I don’t have to literally sweep a ton of unread posts into the “Mark All Read” trashcan. Nor do I have to cancel any subscriptions. I simply ignore the tweets!

Browsing the Magazine Rack

I’m continually looking for fresh stuff. While checking the games and entertainment directory on JustTweetIt.com, I discovered Never Unplaying, a blog written by @tailsmarik.

I also check out some of the @ links, whether I see them on Twitter or on blogs.

Becoming a Discriminating Reader

Twitter is what it is and, sometimes, there are just too many tweets flying by. Third-party tools like TweetDeck and Twhirl are indispensable for managing my Twitter experience. In particular, TweetDeck allows me to group my followers, while Twhirl gives me a great pop-up notification of tweets. I’ll probably switch to TweetDeck, because of this:

Good looking out, @iaindodsworth!

Blow Ins that You’ll Read

I love serendipity! I just came up with this today, so I wanted to see if one prolific writer, Jessica Hagy was on Twitter. Her blog does have a Twitter link; she is @jessicahagy.

Here’s what makes her cool: her blog is printed on index cards.

The serendipitous part involves one of her tweets:

So, Jessica, if I’m not too late, here is my idea.

Check Out This Magazine!

Follow me.

I found a fantastic example of this whole-brain thinking on HubPages.com. While updating one my hubs, I noticed that I had a new fan.

more »
HubPages

solarshingles is an Internet Marketer, so his left-brain activity shapes the hubs for maximum effectiveness. His Solar Power Shingles -Tiles hub clearly shows that he provides valuable content, understands SEO, writes in a clear style suitable for hubs and makes use of nearly every tool provided by HubPages page builder.

What fascinates me the most is that his fan base has grown to over 800 in only seven months. It seems that one of his strengths is engaging his readers and commenters. That is the social aspect, which his right-brain handles admirably.
His self-deprecating profile puts a human feeling to go along with his pleasant photo.

This stuff is really starting to click …

I Will

embrace the ideas of social media experiments;

participate fully in the discussion surrounding these ideas;

support my family, friends and fellow networkers.

I Won’t

rush to join the latest network without just cause;

revive abandoned network affiliations;

support a network that uses meaningless, ego-centric metrics to coerce participation.

Plurk penalizes, CoComment confounds, Qassia kills.

Karma coercion, confusing setups and poor support litter the Social Media landscape, and I will gingerly step over these time bombs.

Bah!

Twitter titillates, StumbleUpon surprises and Ryze rocks.

Front Porch Folks looks promising, and reTaggr signatures look cool!

Relevancy, simplicity and fun highlight the allure of Social Media networking and I will continue to actively tweet, stumble and post as much as possible.

It seems as if we are all shouting into the wind of a million simultaneous whispers.

As the novelty wears off of each social media network that I’ve joined, I wonder why I bother.

I do understand that there is a lot of work involved in getting the most out of social networking.

But, what does it really mean to be getting the most out of social networking?

My online time is divided between my personal blog here and my business pursuits on other websites. I am not particularly diligent about promoting my business websites on my blog. I feel that I need to reach out to certain business owners who are my target market. Because I don’t want to blatantly pitch to them, I also feel that I need to get to know them better on the social networks like Twitter, which I recently embraced.

Yet, business networks like LinkedIn are more like résumés and gatekeepers, stifling the natural flow of conversation that is the hallmark of social networks.

Rather than simmer in a confusing soup of misconceptions, I decided to ask my friend, Laura, to share her thoughts with me. She recently started a business networking website that attempts to combine the best of both networking types. Her thoughts crystallized the mental pictures clouding my thinking:

If you are looking for business, social media networks usually aren’t where to find it, because people on those sites are looking for something different than what you are offering. So business networking sites work better than social media sites.

They work on the same principles, but one focuses on business purposes, while the other will waste your time if you are hoping for business from it. The only exception to this is if your target market happens to be in the social arena – most are not.

Dominique’s Social Media Model, Disentangled

Ah, okay. So I need to disentangle myself from all of these social networks. What if something really cool comes out? Don’t I have to stay on top of these things? What if it’s the next Facebook?

You don’t have time for everything. There comes a time when you have to say, I have enough. If what you DO understand is working, it is enough. If it is not, you have to explore other possibilities, but it is ok to decide that something isn’t right after trying it, or even BEFORE if you have analyzed the potentials and feel that they will not be great enough to warrant the time it takes to try it out. Just trying it out takes a lot of time, so you have to be careful which ones you try.

I try some things, but I won’t try Twitter, because I do not have time for it. I am maxed out on social networking. FaceBook is working for me, in unexpected ways, and it did so rather fast. But long term, I don’t know what it is capable of, or if it will fritter into a time waster. If it does, I’ll pan it and go on.

Darn. I have to make a mental shift in my approach to social media networks. I love gadgets, and I can see now that I let that get in the way of logically assessing their actual value.

Dominique’s Social Media Model, Optimized

I think the big thing is to think about them. To consider your objectives, and consider whether the option is likely to help you achieve them. Sometimes when we are new to networking, we get confused about the objectives – we think meeting people is the same as networking. It isn’t. We think advertising is the same as communicating, and it is not either. We aren’t sure who our target market is or where they hang out, so we get confused about where to look for them.

I can certainly simplify matters by focusing on one or two complementary social media networks. But Laura has also clarified why LinkedIn isn’t doing a thing for me: the objectives of the network do not match mine. LinkedIn is more of a corporate headhunter site, filled with credentialed professionals. Not likely the kind of folks looking for my services!

Laura’s Business Networking Model

Lately, I’ve been able to connect more with the down-to-earth business people who are starting to join Laura’s Front Porch Folks. She encourages members to minimize social networking in order to focus on business networking.

Front Porch Folks certainly has plenty of ways for us to do that. I’ll be spending a lot of time over there.

In fact, I’ve just contributed my first article to the library: Marketing with Games.

Laura’s having a membership contest! I want all twelve of you readers to join us on the Front Porch Folks website! She’s giving away some absolutely fabulous prizes. (Hint, Laura builds websites!)

Just click this button and sign up for free.

Please tell her Mitchell Allen sent you.

Beneath twitter, my thesaurus mentions agitation, cry, music, emotion and excitement.

Unbelievably, I experienced all of these in the space of one hour, today.

Presented out of context, Twitter-style, I submit these random thoughts:

agitation

How do I link to my twitter? What is this /statuses/ thing?

Let me check some tweets.

cry

I laughed so hard …

Caroline Middlebrook tweeted about this comic

She wants help understanding it. *

music

O-ho! It’s the posting time. Now I can submit my contest entry.

{Whistling as I work}

emotion

Social networking is so fulfilling.

I must thank Jessica.

excitement

I got an email from Jessica!

Something about a Twitter Writing Contest

Twitter

Jack lay mortally wounded beside a horribly dented galvanized pail. He moaned, “I won’t be watering that beanstalk, after all.” Jill wailed.

I’ve come to the conclusion that networking websites are the most useful online resource for me.
Blogs and forums provide an awesome interactive format for building relationships, establishing credibility and generally, helping others.

Ryze.com
my Ryze Profile

In August, 2005, I finally responded to one of the many invitations from friends. I hadn’t started my website design business, yet. I was nearly drowning in business opportunities; however, I figured Ryze.com would be a good way to learn about even more! Plus it would be great to join forums and get those burning business questions answered.
At one point, I hosted my own forum: The Vertical Blog Tunnel Network. It was part of a social outgrowth from another networking website (see WritingUp.com, below.)
I’m no longer actively networking on Ryze, but I correspond via the guestbook feature.

AtHomeResources.com
http://athomeresources.com

I found this site after meeting the webmaster, Erin, on Ryze. I joined a week before Thanksgiving, 2005. I had more fun here, chatting in the forums with different work at home moms from around the U.S. This was Erin’s first forum site and we all pitched in to help her out.

WritingUp.com
My blog on WritingUp

I literally stumbled onto this site, during Thanksgiving weekend, 2005. I had never blogged before. John, the webmaster, made it sound so easy to get started. The real incentive for me was that I could finally get the coveted Google AdSense publisher ID, without having to wait until one of my marketing sites was large enough to be considered. (At the time, I believed that my tiny sites would be rejected out of hand.) I met so many people from around the world, all of them passionate writers and internet marketers.
Shortly after joining WritingUp.com, I decided to upgrade my Ryze membership, in order to host a forum dedicated to the members at WritingUp.com. I created The Vertical Blog Tunnel Network in order to provide a way for the members to communicate with each other privately. I think it was successful but, as the WritingUp site grew, it became more feature-rich, rendering the VBT obsolete. I continued to blog there and I was even considering building blogs for my clients on the site. Unfortunately, it crashed too often.
I no longer blog on the site, though I continue to support it.

EntrepreneurDad.com
http://forums.entrepreneurdad.com

Fast-forward seven months. Another Ryze member told me about a forum for Work at Home dads. When I joined in June, 2006, I was only the 22nd member. I thought it was nice to get involved near the beginning. Justin, the webmaster, was very cordial, and we posted quite a view conversations.
Justin is very creative. He drives members back to the forums by posting a “Question of the Week” and hosting contests.

FanStory.com
www.fanstory.com

Although this is not a work-at-home site, per se, it is a great resource for writers, who tend to fall into the work-at-home category. I just joined this site in October, 2006 and I’ve found myself drawn to the camaraderie amongst the writers, much as I did on WritingUp.com.
I get to express myself as a writer and to receive constructive criticism from professional reviewers.
Writing is a useful skill and FanStory is a cool place in which to practice.

What’s Yours?

Do you have a favorite place to network? Leave a comment to let us know what makes it special to you.