Sharing has become a huge mess of complexity, with many questions to ask yourself before you even share one item. The biggest one for me is “Where do I share, and where does it go from there?”
Really, it comes down to an engineering problem – a large system of equations to tell you how to connect each platform to minimize your clicks and maximize efficiency. But that’s not really the way to go if you want to fine-tune your sharing habits..and avoid inundating friends with redundant shares.
So let me share (ha) my personal sharing habits conundrum.
Information flows I have setup/know about:
1) Twitter posts to Facebook ; links back to @raarjr
2) Tumblr posts excerpt to Facebook ; links back to my Tumblr (albeit via an innocuous “View Post” link)
3) Blogspot – can only import notes into Facebook, with seemingly no trace of where it comes from.
4) G+ – after I share something, I can click a “Share to..” button and share on FB/Twitter.
Optimizing my sharing efficiency (Reducing # of clicks to reach the maximum audience)
1) Connect Twitter -> FB
2) Connect Tumblr -> FB
3) Connect Blogspot -> FB (hesistant to do so if there really is no “Import blog” function – I might just tweet about a new post and link back)
4) G+ – push to Twitter, which pushes to Facebook (but then Tumblr gets lonely..especially since G+ posts can be long form). Or just directly push to FB.
The complexity of it all…it really does begin to look like a large system of equations! And this isn’t even beginning to deal with who sees what (which frankly, only G+ would be suited for, since Facebook has that amalgam of anybody who has even seen me once can Friend me and I’ve accepted, for better or worse).
Plus the potential for “double-posting”, which I quickly figured out on an initial run of my system (if I wrote something on Tumblr and wanted to tweet it for instance).
But then what if I want to promote this blogger page? If I want to promote it on Tumblr/FB/Twitter, there doesn’t seem to be a way that I won’t double or triple-post, and redundancy like that is no laughing matter, as prevalent as it is in biological networks.
So let’s break down the problem:
1) Two “large” networks (G+/Facebook) – where I keep in touch with my friends, and can even distinguish amongst my close “circles”
2) Twitter, which focuses on the shortform of 140 characters max, and is commonly used to push on-the-go updates, mostly ranging in the mundane from what I’ve seen, and to push out updates from my blogs.
3) Tumblr – my anything goes blog, which I want to share with anybody who is interested (read: probably more of my closer friends, since this more of me being silly/goofy/myself)
4) Blogger – my “professional” blog, which I want to share with anybody who is interested (read: a larger audience)
So we can see here that each platform demands it’s own sharing habits/behaviors (and don’t even get started on Photos/Location – that just adds two more levels of complexity to the mix – this is just sticking with text/web updates!). And of course as more companies seek to get into the sharing bubble (ooh, that might be an interesting post/analysis), this fragmentation of people’s lives into distinct platforms will serve only to undercut each platform in turn.
Now this might be consolidated with moves from Google/Facebook to either acquire or incorporate feature sets from their smaller cousins. But alas, the UI/UX typically suffers. Or the only people to know about each different platform are the “techies” (which unfortunately, as is the case for many techies I’m sure, many of my friends – college and otherwise – aren’t a part of that Circle).
Getting back to what am I personally going to do about my own conundrum..I think I am just going to disconnect Tumblr for now until I can think of a better solution. And just publicize my blog posts manually via Facebook. And Tumblr. As well as Twitter. Then maybe I’ll create a “techie” circle which would care about such posts and share on G+. Ugh. So much for efficiency..
P.S. And who would have thought I’d get to use the word “tributaries” after middle school. I should use obscure words more often.
Note: I was intending on holding off on posting about this…but I couldn’t help it after I came up with such a nice title.
P.P.S. The "Share on.." feature is actually a Google Chrome Extension, which can be found at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oenpjldbckebacipkfbcoppmiflglnib. Additionally, another cool Chrome extension that makes it much more readable is Usability Boost for Google Plus, which can be found at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dkcppcocablbakkaboahjmljpodddkcp
Oh and the first one's name is Extended Share for Google Plus