Designating My Onlineness
I’m what you might call an early adopter. I like to join sites and services when they’re still in beta, before they get big. I like to see how these companies grow and develop. Being the nerd that I am, I like being able to brag that I joined Flickr when it was new and cool and before they were bought by Yahoo. I joined Twitter in 2006 before @replies and hashtags and trends and celebrities. I was the 62nd person to sign up for Gowalla. It’s a stupid thing to be proud of, I know, but I’m actually going somewhere with this, I promise!
With all the various social sites/services I contribute to (Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), I feel like my online “voice” is fragmented because I spread out information over so many different media. The easy fix for a lot of people is to connect all their accounts together so no one misses anything, but this leads to redundancy if you have followers/friends that overlap. Most of my Twitter friends are also my Instagram friends, for instance, so I don’t want to bug them TWICE about the crappy picture I just took, ya know?
I like things nice and tidy and organized, and this has frustrated me for a long time, so I’ve been crafting a solution for myself: designating specific content to specific sites/services.
Personal Stuff
Now that the new Facebook Timeline actually archives past information, I’m going to keep personal life things there. I’ve made my page public by default and am allowing subscribers. We’ve all learned it’s pretty useless trying to get family members to “follow” you in any way outside Facebook, so I’m not going to fight it. (I’ll be using “friends-only” filters for private posts if necessary, but I’m generally of the mind-set that you shouldn’t share anything online unless you’re ok with the entire world seeing it.)
Professional Stuff
Ok, so here’s the thing. I do contracted design work with regular clients, but I’ve started to do more outside projects. The current caseydukes.com was done in a day and needs a proper redesign. I’ll be turning this Tumblr blog (blog.caseydukes.com) into a more professional, work-related blog.
Content Sharing
I’m going to be using my Pinterest for sharing pretty photos with others. For content that I want to save for myself, I’m using Gimme Bar. (It’s super awesome, but it’s in closed beta right now, sorry.)
Special Interest Blogging
I have a lot of interests, and I think that’s what makes it so hard to organize all the things I want to talk about. Most bloggers have categories for the different topics they cover (fashion, home, cooking, personal, etc). I like blogging about thrifting and decorating my home, but not everybody wants to read that, so I’ve got a separate Tumblr blog just for those things. If you want to follow it, you can, but if you’re following my main blog (this one), you don’t have to. It’s Internet magic!
I have a Tumblr for my etsy shop. Jason and I have a shared one for travel called The Amazing Adventures of Dukes & Dukes. It may seem a little nuts to have so many blogs, but it’s no extra work on my end, and I like letting friends choose what topics to subscribe to.
Disclaimer: By no means do I consider myself a great contributor to the Internets. I have been blogging [very] sporadically since 2003, and although I have made some great online friends, I’m a shy one, and the purpose of this post is not to get more followers. I simply aspire for more focus in my life, personally and professionally. I hope my strategy encourages those who also struggle with defining their online voice.
