DISQUS

trappermark · 7 months ago

If you are feeding Twitter to FriendFeed, make sure you exclude Twitter from services FriendFeed sends to Twitter, or you will get the dreaded FriendFeed echo on Twitter. You can still manually opt to send your FriendFeed posts to Twitter.

Also, my friends on Twitter seem to appreciate if I post a shortened URL for links on FriendFeed that go to Twitter (and turn on the FriendFeed setting that sends the original URL instead of the FF URL). I know that many FriendFeeders feel that using the FF URL helps get Tweeps to converse on FF about the post, but I find far more are annoyed by having to click twice to get to what I'm linking to.

apas · 7 months ago

Great and very informative post, Louis! Totally agree with you!

Niklas Sjostrom · 7 months ago

Interesting post describing your data flow, Louis. (InFeeds was new to me, btw.)

One more thing to possibly factor into a flow is that some of us do status updates in different languages depending on the intended audience. Keeping them on different services is always an option, but at the moment my FriendFeed-readers have to endure quite a lot of Swedish if they don’t filter out the Identi.ca-updates.

frodeste · 7 months ago

I agree, but I think it is also important to realize that differnt people use different services. Oversharing is very easy to do: I hate people who do, and I am probably not alone. That is way I have turned off integration between Twitter and Facebook.

I tend to use Facebook for friends and relations that I have met face to face. Usually my FB connections are more social than work related.

LinkedIn is for those that fall out of the FB category, and I only accept invitations from those that I have talked to in person.

I find Twitter to be the best place to meet people, and Friendfeed the best place to where I can get to know those that I meet on Twitter. (Both personal and professional)

I would love to get your thoughts on this.

LMO · 7 months ago

Interesting and helpful info on how to get messages out efficiently. I wonder, however, to what extent I'll have to put extra vigilance toward creating end-user, audience friendly messaging when my team members begin advocating for efficiency over content quality.

I also cringe when I see Twitter updates on Facebook, and have no qualms about unfriending people who do so. Why? While I may truly want to be connected with the person, Twitter messages seems too abrupt and jarring on Facebook. My hope is that social media plans will incorporate both efficiency AND quality (audience oriented) messaging - even when it would be tempting to save time by bundling updates.

frodeste · 7 months ago

Well said!

Jeroen de Miranda · 7 months ago

Louis Gray: 'master your social media flow' - flow picture is useful for other communities as well!

mcwflint · 7 months ago

Thanks for the explanation. I think it is helpful to see how others decide where and what to send.

I am curious about how you decide where to pull your feed in. For instance, which feeds and why for Plaxo
Mary Ann

Bob DeMarco · 7 months ago

I would rate this article 6 stars if I could.

Great information, very useful.

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) · 7 months ago

In a sense, this only tells half of the story, since it doesn't show the INPUTS to louisgray.com (including some very knowledgeable guest writers). I made a (now grossly outdated) map of how many of my items flow into FriendFeed (and, at the time, MyBlogLog), but also textually noted that many of my posts were inspired by items that I read in Google Reader and other places.

Antonella Stellacci · 7 months ago

"It may seem regimented, but once you think about where your data is flowing, you will find a process that works with you."
Do you think this "openness" is an opportunity (to be the architect of your own streams) or is this going to generate confusion (e.g. users don't know what something is for anymore) or it doesn't really matter and things will be accessible only through either search or community?

geechee_girl · 7 months ago

nice post on a topic always on my mind - tracking and interacting with content produced, as well as people

Mike_hts · 7 months ago

Very informative, especially with the link to last Spring's post. While not generating nearly as much content as you, I have begun to wrestle with some of these workflow and "content management" issues and concerns. Also working to sort out which services and sites to devote any brain cycles to. A potentially endless task it seems at times ;-)

After reading through all of your various activities a question that comes to mind is "How many hours are you devoting to the activities you describe on an average day?" Also, how does that compare to your time usage last Spring. I don't mean to pry, but it would be helpful for putting a "time spent" number to the blogging and social media activity.

Anyways, thanks for the excellent post and sharing your insights. Great stuff and very helpful.

LoveTheCool BLOG · 7 months ago

I stopped having my Tweets auto-update Facebook because I felt the conversations came through one-sided and stunted, and reduced the usability of my page.

Thanks for the tips, though - excellent:)

Mike McDermott · 7 months ago

I still feed Facebook from Twitter.
My friends are either dismissive of my posts or they have gotten used to the volume of my postings.
There is something encouraging when someone you know posts valuable information (from twitter) rather than sharing that their child is puking on your shirt. (a recent FB post I received)

Eric Renz-Whitmore · 7 months ago

Very useful, especially in helping content producers visualize and manage their flow.

MatthewRay · 7 months ago

I am really not a fan of Hellotxt and Ping.fm; a few sites that throw out the same msg to all your sites.

1) half the time, your core audience is following you across all platforms.. they don't want to see your msg more than once! (so stop spamming them)
2) the other half of the time, it is irrelevant to your audience. Facebook for instance. If I tweet something with @ and #, my FB audience won't know what I'm talking about and may eventually hide my updates from their stream.

The bad news there is that you are no longer reaching an audience that you eventually want to reach when you ask from for a poll, or review of a service/product, or try to sell them something (like a seminar or a book, or a push to read your latest blog post).

Know your audience across all platforms. Be respectful and thoughtful. Don't be a spammer (you might be and just don't know it).

Thanks for posting, Louis!
@MatthewRay

Mike McDermott · 7 months ago

I like your thinking!!
Interesting the flow of information you have is similar, but not the same as my mapping.
It really goes to how people find success in their data flows.
I give you props for the acknowledgment that you do NOT use the auto-bots to post your machinations. There is nothing I despise more than an auto-tweet.

chrisaldrich · 5 months ago

I'm curious if you're aware of applications besides http://ffscheduler.com which allow the scheduling of FriendFeed posting which would seem to be a very useful means of entering data into your stream, particularly since you're likely embargoing blogposts and then handcoding your related posts to FriendFeed, Facebook, et al.?

I'm particularly fond of the FriendFeed posts for cross-posting into Facebook since the API also allows for pushing photos attached to the FF post into the FB post inline with the story itself which allows for a prettier post.

Hopefully one day (very soon) all of this data and meta-data will all converge to allow the average user an easier means to be the hub of their own social media graph.