23 Mobile Things: 8. Social Media Management Tools #23ThingsMN

23 Mobile Things #8 is all about social media and managing your connections. Below, you will see my history of joining social media sites and how I use them. Then, I explained some of the management tools that were suggested. At the bottom: the most important part. How to DISCONNECT yourself from third party tools once you decide they are not right for you.

My Social Media History of Connecting

BBSs: My first social media network was a dial-up Bulletin Board System back in the 90s. I could chat in a room with friends, and I knew 90% of the people in person. There was a trivia game playing in the background. You could private message. And, there were simple text-based games that my friends played.

Facebook: I waited quite a while before jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. It wasn’t until I had my first child, home on maternity leave in 2008, that I decided to check it out. I had no idea how it would change the way I connect with family and friends.

Twitter: It was in December of 2008, at the TIES conference, that I tried Twitter for the first time. It changed the way I connect with my professional colleagues.

LinkedIn: I joined LinkedIn just after Twitter, in January of 2009. While I have built my portfolio, I admit that I rarely update or check LinkedIn.

Google+ is still a mystery to me. I connect with a few groups through Google, and I understand how Google+ keeps them connected. But, as far as a sharing site, my Google+ and Twitter connections overlap. 

Foursquare is not something that I see myself using. While I like social media, I don’t like location-based information on myself being shared. I don’t need my friends or my colleagues to know when I stop for a coffee or get to work.

Social Media Management Tools

The 23 Things #8 suggests trying different management tools. Honestly, I try to limit the different third party applications that have access to my different accounts. I feel that the more places that you share your login information, the larger the chance of having an account compromised. But, some of my thoughts and tools are listed below.

Recently, I blogged about some of the tools that I use to manage my Twitter account. You can read about Twitlistmanager, TweetDeck and TwitterLists app here: Twitter Lists: My way of swimming through an endless ocean of Tweets.

I’ve used HootSuite to manage my Twitter account. I have found that I liked TweetDeck better, as mentioned in the post linked above. When I tried HootSuite again today, it crashed on me multiple times.  I haven’t added my Facebook feed. I use different browsers for my personal and professional emails, I don’t want to access my Facebook and Twitter in the same app. I like the separation.

Tweetcaster allows you to post simultaneously to Twitter and Facebook. Since my audiences and connections are very different between these two, I rarely cross post. I do have a Facebook Page set up to mirror my Twitter account. I use If This Then That to cross-post onto the Page.

Below are my thoughts for other suggestions on the blog challenge.

Cloze- requires you to create an account. I would rather go directly to the different accounts.

Echofon- synces your Twitter accounts. I use the tools listed above to do that.

Friendcaster- I tried it. The feed between the online version of Facebook and the app do not align. I don’t know which one was missing the most posts.

DISCONNECTING

Overall:  I’d rather go directly to my social media apps. I like to keep Twitter and Facebook separate. And, now that I have tried these out, here are the steps to DISCONNECT your social media accounts from third party tools.

 Twitter:

  • Sign in to your Twitter account.
  • Click Settings.
  • Choose Apps.
  • Click Revoke Access for all tools that you no longer use.

I just removed access to 10 apps right now, and there are a few more that I need to decide if I will actually use. There are also apps that have accessed my Twitter account from iOS that I would need to disconnect.

Facebook:

  • Sign in to your Facebook account.
  • Click settings.
  • Choose Apps.
  • Click the X to the right of a tool, choose to delete data, click Remove.

I rarely connect my Facebook account to outside programs, but some random game showed up as connected. It’s amazing how fast and easily games and outside programs can take over your account.

When was the last time that you checked which apps have access to your account? If you do it now, are you surprised by what you find?

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *