Don't stand on the shore! Jump into social media with both feet!

Some people isolate their social media platforms. LinkedIn is for their business contacts, Facebook is for only close friends and family, and Twitter, well, for many people, Twitter scares them. If they even heard of Google+, they aren’t there because it would be one more thing and their friends aren’t there.

As with most questions on strategy today, it depends.  You need to craft your social media strategy according to your goals and comfort zone. However, if you are seeking to build community, you shouldn’t shut the door to people who might be assets.

Building Community on Twitter

I have never been a numbers-hunter. The more followers on Twitter… I instead ask people to join me on Twitter. Let’s have conversation not try to reach the highest number.

Growing your LinkedIn Connections

On LinkedIn, I don’t limit my connections to only those I know because there are people who would like to connect to get to know me better and use me as a potential service to help them with their job search or LinkedIn profile optimization or LinkedIn profile writing. Coaching people on better use of LinkedIn is fun for me and my clients seem to enjoy the process.

Making friends on Facebook

Facebook is many different things to me. I learn more about friends and acquaintances and build community. I have some very special people that I would not know without Facebook and I have taken many of those relationships to the next level through a phone call or Skype appointment and sometimes a real life lunch or meeting. I don’t limit who I connect with on Facebook most of the time. I do prefer to connect with people who have real photos of themselves.

Connecting on Google+

Google+ is relatively new to me, to everyone I guess but I like it. The ability to connect with people outside your normal network is easy on Google+. I think the potential is great and the door has opened to talk to some of my connections from other social media in different ways.

What about Pinterest?

One of the newest platforms in Pinterest and I totally enjoy the potential Pinterest has for both social and business use. In the future, I will discuss Pinterest in more detail but for now I will just say that as a sharing site, I think it lets you learn interesting things and depending on how someone uses it, may offer a glimpse into their personality.

I don’t believe in limiting connections but I never allow spammers to take over my networks. I disconnect or block when needed.

How about you? Do you think connections should be limited? My strategy is to jump in with both feet and test the water!

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