Kyle King

Earlier this year, I decided to jump on board the social networking bandwagon. I was convinced it was a useless endeavor with meaningless interaction and mind-numbing text messages from friends and relatives. But still, I was curious and figured I was too young to be left behind…just think of those people that are content to live life with analog TV and VHS…I don’t want to end up like that!

So, I set out and created a blog on WordPress and I’m only now beginning to like what I can do with it. I also created a Windows Live account but haven’t quite seen any real value in it other than the 25GB of disk space for free backups.  I then caught the Facebook bug and was surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing some old friends that I probably would have lost contact with otherwise.

Then came Twitter. This was completely a self-indulgent initiative. I had no idea what to do with it. I racked my brain for anything insightful to “tweet” about. After given it some thought, I decided to make Twitter a resource/informational tool that complimented my blog. I can share my professional interests and personal hobbies…although doing so in 140 characters or less is tough!  Of course, I have no idea whether anything I write about is important to anyone else but I figure I may be able to eventually network with people of similar interests and experiences…and isn’t that the point of social networking?

So here are some takeaways….the best and worst of the things I have learned about the major social networking tools.

Overrated:
1. News feeds/status updates from friends and relatives. I admit, I am guilty of some useless posts but at least I don’t attempt to chronicle every hour of my day and every random thought in my head! It will suffice to provide news feeds that summarize your day or provide some useful snippet or insight into your life. My new personal rule is: if you wouldn’t share it with a friend over the phone or email, it’s not worth writing about on Facebook or Twitter either. If you are not a believer, check out the following hilarious video.

2. Facebook Quizzes. Really. I don’t care about your top 5 brands of soap or what broadway musical you are. I really don’t…but maybe it’s just me.

Underrated:
1. Business or organizational news feeds. I am pleasantly surprised at some of the useful information I have found through Twitter and Facebook from organizations, businesses, media outlets, or just people that have dedicated their profiles to particular interests. I have gotten some good tips and links to other interesting links on the web. Perhaps some of it trivial, but I find it interesting. There’s a big difference between news feeds that share information and those news feeds from friends that say “I’m watching TV with my cat”!
2. Blogging. I am very surprised that I enjoy blogging. It seemed pointless especially since I can’t fathom the idea of writing in a diary or journal. But I approach blogging as an opportunity to share the “Kyle King”  brand with the world. After all, there are many other Kyle King’s out there and I want people to know specfically what I am about. By doing this, I have forced myself into thinking about the things I want people to know about me…my values, beliefs, professionalism, and character. I don’t think people should take this lightly. Maintaining your image on the Internet can help you stand out from a crowd and possibly open up new doors that would never be possible through emails or phone calls. It can certainly be an effective job searching tool. If done properly and tastefully, blogging may do far more for you than any resume ever could.

Personal Conlusions:
I use 3 main social networking tools: 1) Word Press for blogging; 2) Facebook for interacting with friends/family; 3) Twitter for informative news feeds from media outlets, businesses, and organizations. I find that my use of all three are somewhat inter-related. For instance, I might blog about something I see on Twitter and I might tweet about an interesting blog I found on the Internet. I used to allow Twitter to update my Facebook statuses but I decided that I didn’t like it. For me, I like to just “tweet” about work or hobbies and those things just seem oddly out-of-place on Facebook.

When used together, social networking sites can offer a good way to represent your “personal image”. This can be particularly useful when applying for jobs. If people can only resist the temptation to share “everything” about themselves and leave a little to the imagination, we may all get more out of the experience.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kyle_king