What Goes on Facebook? What Goes on Twitter? What Goes on my Blog?

One of Seth Godin's posts a while back, Personal Branding in the Age of Google, struck a number of chords with me.  First, it reminded me of how ubiquitous and powerful search has becoming, dramatically changing the nature of information management -- and the expectations of end users for what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to usability.  It also gave me an opportunity to forward Seth's post to my kids, with whom I have had the "if it's electronic it last forever" conversation about beer pong pictures on Facebook many times.  But parental "I told you so's" are always enjoyable.

But Seth's post also got me thinking about how the rules of "polite" communication (If such a thing exists) have gotten garbled and confused in the Facebook and social networking era. 

I signed on to Facebook very early after they started allowing public accounts.  Early on, there were few of us non student types on Facebook and I was grateful to find ANYONE to join my friends list, no matter how far removed they were from actual friendship.  But now many of my colleagues from AIIM are on Facebook. People from church are on Facebook.  For heavens sake, my brothers and sisters are on Facebook.  Long lost friends from Ramapo High School and William & Mary are on Facebook.  My Mom is making noises about getting on Facebook. 

So the question arises... what kinds of communication belong where? 

I find myself drifting toward a strategy in which I use Facebook for personal networking and Twitter and my blog and Linked In and InformationZen for professional networking.  Not a hard and fast decision or split, but more of a gradual progression.  I know that in this era of content and identity transparency you can't keep things "hidden" and the need for authenticity trumps almost everything -- it's more a matter of trying to think about what types of content are relevant to which audiences and having a little bit of discipline about what goes where.

I worry a bit about turning off some of the purely professional connections on Facebook (will they get notified?  will their feelings be hurt?) but figure this is a small trade off for no longer subjecting them to my admittedly odd and self-indulgent posts about 24 and Amazing Race and Biggest Loser, not to mention some of my family's odd humor preoccupations.  On the flip side, my sister Jennifer will be glad to no longer have to read my status posts on Facebook auto-posted from Twitter that lead her to say, "I have no idea what any of your status posts mean."

What about you?  How are you navigating these personal/professional waters?  Please post a comment.

I can be reached on Twitter at jmancini77.

As you think about your organization's social networking strategy, you should check out our E20 training and AIIM's own social networking site, InformationZen.