"How Many Social Networks are Enough?"

[Rich Jacobson]

If you're like me, it seems like you're get invited to some new social platform nearly every day.

How many Social Networks are enough? Seriously. How effective can you be at networking if you're spread too thin already? After all, we do actually have to spend 'some' amount of our time doing 'business.'

Are we just the kind of folks who have to take a peak at anything new that comes along? Are we just naturally 'curious?' Or is it that the social networks we're already involved in just don't satisfy all our needs/wants?

What say ye?

[Maureen Francis]

OMG. I just found out all these people I know have been a member of this thing since at least December... How have I gotten by? Of course, I don't even know what it is yet...

[Carole Cohen, Realtor®, Howard Hanna Company]

LOL Rich started this discussion yesterday and I said 'omg I have not been back there!' and of course where is he now? LOLOL

[Neal Bloom]

Rich,
I have been invited to many...personally I do not have the time for all of them but occaisionally visit. I'm not even sure there is any SEO benefit from some.

[Carole Cohen, Realtor®, Howard Hanna Company]

Neal even if there are seo benefits I can't live long enough to reap them LOL

[Maureen McCabe]

I absolutley hate doing profiles so I don't have a decent presence on most of them... I think my time is better spent writing a blog post than filling out a profile, or ducking sheep so I have to resist joing more.

I enjoy Twitter.

I have not been back here much.

[Amber]

Howdy, Rich. I agree with everyone here, so this should probably just be a "ditto." While I enjoy joining new groups and interacting with the other members, it can be hard to keep up with it all. My user names and passwords alone are too hard to track! :) At one time (pre-ActiveRain for me), it was pretty easy to stay in the "virtual loop." I had a good feed reader and my favorite RSS feeds, and I was set. Then ActiveRain came along, and it was fun to have conversations within the comments of the blogs there. The network grew and grew, and it became harder and harder to keep up. That happens with all social networks, I guess, and at some point, it gets to be overwhelming. It would be a full time job to keep up with more than a couple of networks at once, if that's even possible, yet we keep joining! Curiosity? Maybe, but I'd say you're closer with the last part. We're all looking for something, and if a particular network doesn't provide it, we keep looking. We'd probably be a lot happier with the whole social networking thing if we took the time to pinpoint what we're after in the first place!

[Linda Davis]

I have given up on all but I few. I really do like Twitter a lot. I participate on Active Rain. I'm not very active although have a profile on several others like linkd in and facebook. And I do like plaxo. I can tell I haven't been here in awhile since I still have my Christmas hat. LOL

[Carole Cohen, Realtor®, Howard Hanna Company]

LOL nice hat! I joined StumbleUpon and everyone is raving; but no time to explore it! What is the advantage, supposedly to Plaxo and what is it like?

[Ines Hegedus-Garcia]

that's funny Linda, although it could be worse.....you could be wearing the Christmas hat in June! : )

[Stephanie Edwards-Musa]

Plaxo is one that I don't visit much, unless I need to look at my address book over there. Maybe I should go more often.

[Carole Cohen, Realtor®, Howard Hanna Company]

I like Twitter because 12 people in one day won't throw hamburgers or sheep at me

[Hawaii Real Estate, Hawaii Military Relocation, Celeste "Sally" Cheeseman, Century 21 Liberty Homes]

In reply to Carole...yeah...it's hard enough for us Hawaii people to get together about blogging when not too many are really into it .... but I will check on other Hawaii forums. So far the only ones I know about are the ones my daughter goes on to bee bop with her friends here.