Last week (or was it the week before…) I spoke at The Ottawa Network’s (TON) special event on the subject of “Becoming Known by Using Social Media & Blogs”.  Afterward, I had a lot of great questions come in from people who had attended my talk.  There was one in particular that I wanted to post publicly to get YOUR feedback, support, guidance and advice on as I couldn’t answer it.

The question is in two parts.  The first one is good – I answered it but it’s the second I need your help with.   Thanks in advance!

——–

An e-mail from Tim Warland:

Thank you for the insight into “today’s generation” at TON last night. I didn’t get a chance to speak with you but have a couple questions:

1. What is the Google tool you discussed to “stalk” yourself?

   (Erin’s Answer:  The Google tool that I use to stalk myself (haha) is Google Alerts.  You can set them up and have them send you a daily e-mail of the mentions of your name, a keyword, your company name, etc.  Best part is that it is free!)

2. I think there is a hole in the social media space. Do you know which tool can patch it?

   Two popular social media tools are facebook and linked-in. Although I don’t facebook, it is a place to inform family and casual friends about my life (not specifically my work life). LinkedIn is for my professional network. As a rule, I only connect to people I know well enough to introduce them to other people in my network. That leaves a hole for about 400 people I know. Folks like the person I shared a plane ride to Boston, people from whom I collected a business card at a tradeshow. Maintaining some form of informal connection is important. What tool manages these casual relationships?

   I’d like to nurture these people who, for the most part, haven’t connected to social media. My objective is to create a monthly newsletter that I can email to different tribes (if the term is correct). The 6-paragraph version of the newsletter would be for family and close friends (the facebook crowd). A three paragraph version would be for professional colleagues (the linkedIn crowd). A single paragraph version would go to the hundreds of casual connections.

   The email would direct people to view my blog (which would look like the 6-paragraph newsletter) and suggest they follow me on twitter, or whatever. The idea would be to encourage them to make a connection back to me.

   What tool is available to fill this space as we transition the older crowd (my tribe) to the new media? Any ideas?

   (Erin’s Answer:  I don’t really know… I use Twitter but I don’t know that it’s a great transitional tool.  Let’s put this to the crowd!)

Thank you in advance!  Leave a comment if you can help answer #2.