This weekend, I decided to take at least a little time for myself and do something not directly related to work or school…so I finished configuring my social networking presence (for the eleventy-millionth time, to date)

Basically, my social media presence is three principle types: blogging—my school blog; the blog tied to my personal “ brand” and this, my main blog…micro blogging—which I use a pair of Twitter accounts for pretty exclusively… and finally, social networking sites—comprised of my Facebook (and a corresponding Facebook fan page for jer_) and my Google+ (and a Plus Page for ibloviate.org).

Until now, I have been doing a rather haphazard system of posting wherein I make an ad hoc decision as to whether any mediums are specifically bad choices for my message, then broadcast it to everywhere else. The way this generally falls down is that most of my posts are diplicated across the board, with only the posts that aren't particularly school-friendly not making the cut for posting on the school accounts.

The downside is that I have some accounts that go largely unused aside from duplicating the content of others. This seems sub- optimal in so many ways.

So, I've renovated how I'm going to be using all of them…I have created two tracks for information; I will call them the “ Jer” and the “jer_” track. The “Jer” track is the easy one. All of the posts that I want to have directly and immediately associated with me go in this track…basically, if I want it to be on the first Google page when someone does a search for my real name, this is the track that I'll post it under.

The “jer_” track is for everything else. It's not as if I'm actively going to try to hide the connection between the two tracks (I mean, I'm writing about them here…and both bear my first name…), but I would like to generate a certain amount of seperation. What this seperation means, though, is that duplication between tracks will not be the norm anymore. Both Twitter accounts carry different posts, the Facebooks will not duplicate one another, etc.

The tracks…

As always there will be some duplication within a track. My Facebook, because I do not much care for it, will continue to be a place that merely reposts tweets from their respective Twitter accounts. When I post a new blog entry, for example, I will post notification in Twitter and G+ (and, by way of Twitter, Facebook). When I have a quick message, I will throw it up on Twitter (and it will roll onto Facebook). When I have a slightly longer thought, I'll post it to G+.

So, the net affect to you, the reader, would be this: If before you were following only my regular Facebook (not the fan page), or my @UofMD_Jer twitter, then nothing changes. Those should look identical from here on out. If, however, you've been following @jer_ or my Facebook fan page, some of the traffic that used to be there will be going over to the other track. Finally, if you have been following both, you'll note that the duplication should cease (generally).

We shall see how this works.