“Beware of social networking overload”

(Beware of social networking overload – Careers- msnbc.com)

My sentiments exactly!!  Just today I was remarking how I felt overwhelmed by all the social networking tools available and then stumbled upon the article (link above). Choices are endless and you get the feeling like you just don’t know which ones to direct your time.  For me it’s the same feeling when you have too much clutter and disorganization in your home and don’t know where to begin to clean it up.  

You’ll laugh, but today I woke up and was like, “I need to organize all my social media tools and I want all my avatars and usernames to match.”  So that’s what I proceeded to do today.  Maybe a little anal I know, but I feel better.  For more advice I turned to “Personal Branding Guru” Dan Schwabel to see what he suggests.  He sticks to the following 12 networks.  

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Flickr
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• Twitter
• Upcoming
• MyblogLog
• Slideshare
• FriendFeed
• StumbleUpon

Looking at the list I agree with most of his choices and hopefully I don’t feel the need to even use that many.  A few of them I’m unfamiliar with and a I subscribe to a few not on the list.  

How are you feeling about the plethora of social media tools?

I’ve signed up for a few I never ever go to like digg, Tribe, and stylehive.  I’m starting to take a real look at which ones I use the most and deactivate the ones I never check.  So far my list of tools I use somewhat regularly are the following. 

• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• YouTube
• Flickr
• and I’d like to add LinkedIn to the bunch.