This morning I responded to several direct messages on Twitter, made plans for meeting friends for drinks on Facebook, added an RSS feed to a Group I administer on LinkedIn and now I’m writing a blog post in Wordpress. I consider each of these platforms to be necessary for different reasons, at this point.

At this point? Yes, because there is certainly some overlap going on. I could blog on LinkedIn and I could use Facebook to microblog instead of Twitter. Eventually one of these platforms is going to absorb the full capability of one or more of the others. However, right now there are very good reasons for keeping them separate. Here’s how I use each for different things:

Twitter for business

Twitter is a business tool. My followers follow me because I have a shared interest in marketing and social media. I don’t follow people that don’t share that interest (especially those incredibly annoying multi-level marketing people!). I am strict about this because I need to stay on a focused message in my Tweets to keep my reputation strong. I don’t have thousands of followers because of this focus. If you share these business interests please follow me and I’ll follow you.

Facebook for friends

Facebook is just what is says it is: a social network. FB for me is a place to unwind, joke around and learn what my social friends are doing. Sometimes I hear about a death or illness, a relationship change or find a friend I haven’t heard from in years so it’s not all fun and games. I don’t do any business here at all- in fact I’m guessing a lot of my friends don’t even know what I do for a living. Facebook’s revenue model is going to be dictated by this aspect and I think they should treat groups of friends from a geo-localized perspective, serving up local entertainment or restaurant ads for instance. Otherwise advertising on FB will not work.

LinkedIn for experience, references and referrals

LinkedIn is an entirely different thing. It is a resume/reference source, i.e. Who is this guy and what do other people think of him? Who is he connected to and is he willing to make an introduction? Business networking, in other words. I’m all for relevant conections on LinkedIn because bigger networks increase its value as a tool. Connect with me and mention this blog post.

WordPress for publishing

WordPress is a content management platform. It enable a non-programmer like myself to publish my ideas. User-generated content is the heart and soul of social media, in fact it defines social media. I’m a writer by background so having a powerful tool like WordPress is amazing. To be able to instantly publish to a global audience is any writer’s dream.

Do we need another social media platform?

My platforms help me communicate in different ways. At this point I don’t need another platform. I could see myself adding YouTube at some point and I have used Slideshare in the past, however I can easily embed those items in my blog, on my LinkIn Profile, in Facebook and point to their URLs on Twitter. I see them as plug-ins rather than standalone platforms. What I don’t need is another platform that duplicates the functionality of those I currently use. Plaxo, for example, duplicates too many things that FB and LinkedIn do well. No Plaxo for me, no offense Plaxo people.

There are lots of attempts to link all these platforms together with one centralized dashboard. I haven’t seen that works they way I’d want it to yet but I’m certainly open to the concept. If you’ve found one that works well let me know in the comments (which in themselves constitute another platform if you’re using Disqus, Backtype or Intense Debate- another post for that one!).