By Jon Castelhano, CIO Advisor
Footprint
Here are a few questions that I often hear when social media is being discussed that deserve some attention.
- What is a social media footprint?
- How big should it be?
- Why do I care?
The Numbers
From a pure numbers perspective, it seems to make sense that jumping into the social media landscape can be a benefit to the professional growth model. Facebook currently has over a billion active users a month alone. Even if you discount that 100 million of those users are pets, objects, or brands, 900 million is a lot of humans. Twitter has 554,750,000 active registered users that tweet, on average, 58 million times a day according to Statistic Brain. As of January 2013, LinkedIn reached 200 million users.Google+ is a bit harder to get a true read on numbers, but even if we go with 135 million users actively posting to Google+ Pages, that is no small number.
Why Do I Care?
All the numbers above can be dissected, debated and manipulated for company purposes but I see them as an opportunity to connect with others that run in the same professional circle as myself (no pun intended). I care about growing as an individual and bringing new ideas into the workplace and sharing my successes with others, which is easily done through social media.
How Big
The size of your social media footprint depends on your comfort level in this arena. Some can juggle multiple feeds while others feel overwhelmed with more than one. My suggestion is take your time and find what works for you, and use technology to help you organize. There are a number of programs out there that will help you streamline your feeds and better manage the large amount of information coming in and out of your busy day. HootSuite is one that I have found to be very helpful for me and worth a look if interested in managing multiple streams.
Give it a Try
We often hear the saying that you have to get out of the four walls of your classroom or office to see what is happening out there. That is a true statement; we all know that sharing, collaborating and having an open mindset will help us grow as individuals. To grow professionally you have to care, so why not use social media as one option to step outside those walls?
Jon Castelhano is director of technology for Apache Junction USD in Arizona. This blog is cross posted on his blog, This and That
