Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I wake up and one of the first things I usually check is Facebook to see who has done what and when around the world in the past 7hrs while I’ve been sleeping. I have an eclectic mix of friends including my partner, close friends, family, ex-partners work colleagues and just a smattering of friends-of-friends. Then there are my fan pages… ok, the pages ‘I Like’ I think they are called now, which include such a mix of music, drag queens from Ru Paul’s famous ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race’, shops, magazines (like ValenciaCity), restaurants, cool pages (like CoolHunter) and travel!…. I don’t have thousands of friends, just the people I actually know, or have met. I’m a bit fastidious about my security settings and only allow my friends and network (Hill & Knowlton of course) to view my updates and uploaded pictures.

Then I worry about tweeting…. OMG! What can I possibly say in 140 characters that will be of interest to my pitiful 97 followers who have read my 1,113 tweets… or increase my sad following?  (The stress increases one hundred fold when tweeting on behalf of the agency!)  In fact I cheat a little and link my personal Foursquare and Facebook accounts to my twitter account so that there is at least an update a day! Even if it is only suggesting where I am eating, drinking or working out! … are you still with me? Sound familiar?

Then there is my LinkedIn account (which again I have linked to the wider H&K LinkedIn network). Should I link to my twitter and Facebook accounts so that my 131 immediate connections linked to my network of 5,048 connections get updated as and when I eat or work out? But then I would have to be a tad more professional in my wording and try to use casual text speak a little less that is acceptable on Facebook. Would they be interested? I doubt it. And then there is Dopplr for tracking my travelling. Should I link this to Facebook and Twitter too or does my Worldmate account that I think I have linked to my LinkedIn account do that already!?

And here is where the sheer PANIC sets in (OK, panic might be a bit of an exaggeration). Why is something as simple as updating my social media pages, that is meant to be fun, informative or even creative becoming such an issue for me when deciding on what to post? It sometimes makes me feel like Worzel Gummidge (now I’m showing my age!) and the need to change my head, as Worzel did, in order to function appropriately at a given time! Sometimes I think I have too many accounts on social media networks that need updating but are not always appropriate to link so that the updates are all the same! If all my updates were exactly the same that would become just dull wouldn’t it? Updates that work on one social media platform can often fall flat on another. Where I have to be professional on one site, I risk becoming boring on another and where I want to be fun and frivolous becomes inappropriate back on the other. So why are we always trying to link all of these social networks when they all have different audiences and reasons for existence?

Almost all of us at H&K in London have had social media and digital training so that we can advise our clients on the issues of social media. (You should contact our business development team or Candace Kuss at H&K if you need advise on your own digital strategy). But integration of these platforms is becoming commonplace and so the risks that a particular post will occur in error has significantly increased should you not have clear policies, procedures or guidelines in place. Even personal ones such as boundaries regarding taste and decency are so important. Especially if you don’t remember what platforms you have linked and what you post to one audience on one won’t upset, alienate or just bore an audience on the other.

All this I think about on a Monday morning! Even before I have even considered what I should blog about and how often I should do that!  It certainly can make your head spin!

As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.