What social network lifestream sharing and web marketing philosophy do you recommend for a freelancer?
February 13, 2012 11:30 PM Subscribe
What social network lifestream sharing and web marketing philosophy do you recommend for a freelancer?
It's kinda hard to be systematic about this question. It's rather big.
I'm trying to figure out a philosophy and workflow for integrating my website and social presence on the web. It's complicated in two ways. The first is that the line between personal and professional is very blurry. The social aspect allows us to show our personal side in professional settings, but it's a bit of a tightrope to know what is too much.
The second is that since Facebook is not crawl-able by Google's bots, my content isn't indexed for the search engine. So this forces me to rethink my content and try to get it out of Facebook. But then this furthers the personal/professional problem.
Right now, my strategy is to post outside Facebook first, either at my blog, or through twitter, and then use twitter to post status to Facebook or to link to a blog post.
But as I migrate out of Facebook, if I put my photos on Picassa, they will be visible by my Google+ people. And I'm not sure whether photos of my daughter's wedding have any meaning to someone who may want to hire me as a speaker for an event.
It's this giant soupy mess. I think about it a lot. And can't really seem to come up with something that makes sense.
Thanks in advance for any help.
It's kinda hard to be systematic about this question. It's rather big.
I'm trying to figure out a philosophy and workflow for integrating my website and social presence on the web. It's complicated in two ways. The first is that the line between personal and professional is very blurry. The social aspect allows us to show our personal side in professional settings, but it's a bit of a tightrope to know what is too much.
The second is that since Facebook is not crawl-able by Google's bots, my content isn't indexed for the search engine. So this forces me to rethink my content and try to get it out of Facebook. But then this furthers the personal/professional problem.
Right now, my strategy is to post outside Facebook first, either at my blog, or through twitter, and then use twitter to post status to Facebook or to link to a blog post.
But as I migrate out of Facebook, if I put my photos on Picassa, they will be visible by my Google+ people. And I'm not sure whether photos of my daughter's wedding have any meaning to someone who may want to hire me as a speaker for an event.
It's this giant soupy mess. I think about it a lot. And can't really seem to come up with something that makes sense.
Thanks in advance for any help.
"runs across you professionally site"? Ewww. You can see why I don't have an online business card.
posted by flabdablet at 3:01 AM on February 14, 2012
posted by flabdablet at 3:01 AM on February 14, 2012
Your user name here take me to your profile which takes me to your website which takes me to your About page which seems to show you as undecided about many things. If that's your professional online presence, you might want to update or revamp it.
I use Facebook for work related things more than intensely personal matters, and have gotten jobs offers that way. But my photo of my new shoes was very popular with my friends.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:58 AM on February 14, 2012
I use Facebook for work related things more than intensely personal matters, and have gotten jobs offers that way. But my photo of my new shoes was very popular with my friends.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:58 AM on February 14, 2012
Response by poster: fwiw.. I only just realized that putting my webpages up could have looked liked self-promotion. Unless you are interested in taking piano lessons from me in Central Washington, that's not the case. Also, I should note that jeffreylong.net is not yet what I would call a professional presence. It's a personal blog. I'm working on the professional side. And trying to figure out where things like the personal blog fit in, or if I should somehow try to hide it from humanity. Examples are Seth Godin's site which is a billboard that leads you to other things. And his blog is tuned to his professional "brand." That's where I'm trying to focus. My online presence now doesn't represent that.
posted by jeffreyclong at 11:50 AM on February 14, 2012
posted by jeffreyclong at 11:50 AM on February 14, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
Really, I think your philosophy just needs to follow from Metafilter Guideline #1: Don't Be A Dick. Then it doesn't matter what you upload or to where.
If you use a consistent online identity to make yourself easy to search for, and obey the Don't Be A Dick rule, anybody who runs across you professionally site and wants to know more about you can use the usual plethora of search tools and won't find anything professionally damaging. If you absolutely can't get by without having some way to be a dick online, use a separate identity for that and be careful not to leave behind clues that will link that to your respectable identity (EXIF data in photos being one that's commonly overlooked).
Don't even try to use Facebook or Google+ or social media in general for the purpose of presenting a professional face to the world. Looking professional, even in 2012, is more about hiding information than sharing it. Hell, in 2012 anybody who can hide a bit of information automatically earns respect.
I'm not sure whether photos of my daughter's wedding have any meaning to someone who may want to hire me as a speaker for an event.
Probably not.
Since you're already running your own site, complete with a vanity domain name, it seems to me that there's your ideal platform for professional self-promotion. Put content and/or links there that would be meaningful to somebody who might want to pay you to exercise your professional skills. This can and probably should be quite sparse. It's basically your online business card.
Set up a subsite, maybe blog.yoursitename.com, that's got all the chatty personal sharing stuff you've presently got on your main site. Links to stuff on the subsite will be the ones you hand out to family and friends. It can and probably should have a link to your professional site, but your professional site should not have links back to your online-personal-life site beyond some kind of contact form.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 AM on February 14, 2012 [3 favorites]