One of the hallmarks of good social networking strategy is to overlap your social networks. This means that when you connect with someone through one social network, you want to try and connect with them also on the other social networks.
There are several reasons this is important. First, it enables you to leverage multiple platforms at once, so if your account on one platform (or the platform itself) goes down, you haven’t lost touch with your network. The second reason you want to overlap your social networks is psychological. The more familiar you are to people, the more they will like you. Seeing your name and profile again and again on multiple networks will automatically make you more familiar to those in your network. You can assist this process by offering good insight and relevant information.
The great thing about technology is that there are more and more services which can aid you in overlapping your social networks. If you use Facebook connect on Plaxo, for instance, your Plaxo network grows when you connect with someone on Facebook, if both you and the other person have this feature enabled.
A similar type of interconnectivity is promised by Twables.com, which is a service that connects your Facebook friends with your Twitter friends. You can access the service by going to http://www.twables.com/fb140
I didn’t find it extremely straightforward to set up, this probably could be slightly improved. However, once it was set up, I started getting @ messages on Twitter telling me which of my Facebook friends were on Twitter. I then have to login manually to my Twables account to accept or confirm the connection.
I think the idea of this service is very good, and it will be one to watch in the coming months. More and more, we will be seeing technology to help us connect in as many networks as possible, which will help us better navigate the flow of new social media connections and relationships.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
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