Social Media Strategy: An Update

Last quarter I blogged about my personal social media strategy. Since then I have made some changes and my habits have changed as well. I thought I’d take this opportunity to describe some of the changes that had taken place as a way to kick start the quarter. A lot of the changes or new habits I have adapted were discoveries made during the Social Media course quarter, or decisions I made after being inspired something in class (such as my determination to find the best RSS Reader for my own purposes).

On the whole, I would make the observation I have actually become less social on social media as I participate less and consume more now, instead channeling my production and creation towards personal/private purposes as well as for, well, monetary compensation.

Current

  • Facebook: Recently I’ve used Facebook Groups more as my office now has a private Facebook Group to share funny updates. This keeps the global team together and I find it fairly effective. I have also been using mostly the Messenger app and very occasionally browse the timeline for interesting news simply because Facebook hasn’t been working well on Chrome and I can’t get it to load.
  • Twitter: I almost don’t use Twitter anymore except for the occasional scroll. I know a lot of my Japanese friends still read Twitter so I do publish my blog to it, but that’s about it. And the reason for this is because:
  • gReader: I am so in love with reading from RSS feeds that I don’t really need any other apps for news anymore!
  • Delicious: Forget Diigo! Ever since it moved to the new weird Premium model, I’ve stuck by Delicious. It’s pretty intuitive and the mobile app works quite seamlessly with gReader as well.
  • LinkedIn: Ever since I landed a job, I am barely on LinkedIn anymore either, but I do think it is important. I’ll most likely be still updating my resume regularly when there are changes.
  • Tumblr: I still flip through Tumblr regularly, although I no longer post on them because I have resolved to only translate when I am paid simply because I need my time to translate into money. I am still translating the same things, except now I do it through a platform where I can get much wider readership and compensation, so why not? Tumblr is still great for browsing and for wasting time. I have also updated my personal projects blog hosted on Tumblr and still convinced that it’s the most effective CMS for the layman. In fact, I like it so much that I have taken to make Tumblr a hub connecting all my other social media properties. I have also opened several private Tumblrs for different journaling purposes (e.g. health and fitness, reading, self-study) 
  • Instagram: Ihave connected Tumblr to Instagram so that should I wish to, I can post pictures and keep them connected because like I mentioned above, I’m using my Tumblr as hub.

Somewhere In Between

  • Soundcloud: Soundcloud does have social capabilities, but in the end I use it like Dropbox for my music works.
  • Ameba: This is a Japanese blogging platform. I blog almost every other day for personal satisfaction. This is linked to my Twitter account, since I have a very limited audience on both Twitter and Ameba, it sort of feels private even though I know I’m still being heard and read.
  • Messaging Apps (LINE and WeChat): Although these have social feed capabilities, I use them purely for messaging.
  • Goodreads: When I actually get around to reading for leisure, I record it in Goodreads just so I know where I am and how much I’ve read. I don’t use the social functions much, but it’s fun to see what my friends are reading and perhaps find new reads through it.
  • Duolingo: Again, this is a social app in nature, but I only follow a handful of people on it and am mostly just doing my own thing. The gamification nature of it makes it very appealing for revising languages (in my case French). I use a similar app developed by a Chinese company to revise Japanese and Korean.
  • Cafetalk: More of a service than a social network, but it does have social elements to it. I am using it to study Japanese and Korean with native speakers through Skype. It has a very vibrant and global community.

Retired

  • WordPress: I have quit WordPress to free up my domain to use as a sandbox for other programming projects. Also because I blog mostly on Tumblr now when I do blog.