Getting down with the Kids

How many social media sites can you join before it becomes overwhelmingly, administratively burdensome?

Having been a Facebooker since the Year Dot (and experimenting with MySpace, MSN etc. along the way), it's been a blessing to keep up with family and friends in Oz.  I'm also on LinkedIn and, more recently, Twitter (second attempt, after failing to see the advantage first time round).

I've now had to pare down some Facebook game peripherals (I've farmed, gambled with virtual money - what's the point? - and was even briefly a hitman for the Mafia) because suddenly social networking has got serious for me as I explore ways of monetising my web 'influence' in the continuing absence of a regular job.

It started with Klout, a measure of your 'reach' on the web, i.e. how many people you engage with who go on to proactively share or comment on your output.  You add all the places where you have a web presence (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Blogger to mention a few) and it pulls in all the data and gives you a rating of 1-100.  At first, I was suspicious of a site seeking access to so much of my personal information but, hey, I decided my life is an open book anyway and I have nothing to hide.

And today I finally awoke, blinking into the light of a brand new world of possibilities as I started to develop my contacts in an initiative I recently found on Klout called Wahooly. It cleverly capitalises on your influence by joining with partners to help develop and promote new business start-ups in exchange for a share in their equity.  At the same time it gives those companies a new kind of traction (as an alternative to conventional marketing) to hit the market running.  It fits well with my social conscience, because it might just be that missing link between Capitalism and Socialism where more people get to share the prosperity, rather than all the spoils going to 'The 1%'.

But it's piled on more web admin ... cross-following, making Twitter lists, keeping up with group discussions and exchanging details, etc.  I only hope I'm using my time productively in between usual jobsearch techniques.  That said, I feel energised by the buzz I'm getting from all the Bright Young Things that have subscribed.  Of course, the super-competitive go-getter Americans have gone into hyper networking mode! Gotta love 'em for it. Failure is weakness.  :-)

We'll see, but at the moment I'm an excited bunny waiting for the first proposition to land in my portfolio!