Seems like all our clients are asking the same question these days. They pay us to give them helpful answers, but hey, it’s a Saturday and I have a little free time (because I don’t have Tweetdeck turned on!). My apologies to the Bard:

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler to spend your work hours on Twitter
Following news of outrageous behavior and misfortune,
Or to take to your keyboard and get back to work,
And by un-following, end them. To work, or to tweet
No more; and by an unsubscription to say we end
The dull conceit and the thousand unnatural shocks
The web is heir to — ’tis a mental nirvana
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die to Twitter;
To sleep, perchance to work. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep or work, to what purpose our time,
When we have logged off this persistent stranger,
Freedom must give us pause. There’s the disrespect
That makes calamity of online life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of bloggers,
The anonymous poster, the proud arrogant insult,
The pain of willful misunderstanding, manners’ decay,
The insolence of contempt and the spurning
Of patient merit and reasoned conversation,
When we ourselves can our own quiet make
With a blank monitor? who would follow the chatter,
To linkshrink and retweet instead of work,
But that the dread of being laid off,
The unpaid, inactive state from which
No coworker returns, strengthens the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of…

In the world of being meticulous, it’s important to make good choices about what to ignore.  Sometimes my most important list is the one reminding me of things I’m NOT working on right now.  I’ll cop to employing skepticism as a way to avoid exploring new social media tools / destinations / designations.  Hey, you try being meticulous and getting through a day without skepticism.

But folks, I gotta say it – people talking to each other about big choices, like, say, business-to-business purchases  – pretty much that’s here to stay.  And nowadays people do a lot of that talking online.  Just think of “online social marketing” as a big new trade show all your competitors and prospects have been invited to.  It’s happening every day, all day.  It’s easier to get to than any other trade show – cheaper, too.  Heck, it’s indexed so you don’t even need to carry around a map and schedule.

Now, it may be conducted in a dialect you are just learning to speak, but you know what?  It’s the dialect everyone under 30 grew up speaking.   It may not always be Facebook and Twitter and forums and expert blogs and RSS and user reviews, but the top is propped open on this one – prospects are expecting an online presence more and more every year.

One thing I love about Twitter is getting quick links to interesting posts from people in the industry I respect. Posts by poseurs on Twitter being slow today? Not so much…hey guy, you’re not helping!

So, even though Seth Godin is in our search marketing blogroll and one of the best and brightest writing on marketing, I had not seen this post on The Secret of the Web (hint: it’s a virtue) until today. (Gosh, I was out of the loop for almost a day!) It’s a good reminder that the hard things, like refining your content to be more relevant for a golden nugget of a search term that nobody else has discovered yet, are ultimately worth doing. The cool things that keep you from doing the hard things, like SEO? He talks about that, too.

It took a couple of pining hours, but when Sara our blog guru and fashionista de officina arrived she immediately said “Oh my gosh, look at your shoes! Oh my, those are amazing.” And then graciously she endured my enthusiastic telling of the sighting and capture of these stunning pink and wedge heeled mary janes finished with white trim, a peek-a-boo toe opening and a big white flapper-dancer button clasp.

Just about now you just might be thinking “I thought this was a b2b web marketing blog,” or “Crud, I Googled s-h-o-e instead of s-e-o; I must really be tired…”

Hang in – you’re in the right place. This is a b2b internet marketing agency blog. The topic today is online social networks, and the question is how much of an individual’s personality is appropriate for their social network presence, especially in industries like ours, where we are likely to have an online presence for career that flows quickly in to our personal online profiles.

Barring the extreme, say, for instance, a case where I’d have a facebook persona called Notice My Cool Shoes, and another account with completely different credentials called Susan McElhenney Views Source…where does professional social networking stop and personal hanging out on the web begin?

A creature of detail, I’ll move us to examples. That I do Search Engine Optimization, that’s professional. That I am a working mom with 2 young children…appropriate detail for my Facebook profile? Linked In? How about my interest in transcendent bikram yoga? OK, now, how about the detail that I’m a long distance runner? What if I run with a group called Marketers Marking Miles? What if I run with a group called Moms For The Right to Nurse Our Babies While Standing In Line At the Bank? Are these affinity groups part of my work blog profile? My linked-in profile? My facebook profile? What do you think: Can I twitter my new, pink, absolutely fabulous shoes?

Enough about the search engines’ market share, already! It is spring in Austin, and it’s a great time to get out of the office. It’s good for the soul to remember that, in a non-virtual, totally offline life, “twitter” and “tweet” are words that anchor you to life, and are not trendy at all.

This Flickr “badge” is a widget–a little bit of code that does something interesting–to show you how easy it is to incorporate your photos into your social networking. If you click on a picture, you’ll go to Flickr and get an enlargement, and from there you can view the entire photo set as a slide show. Very yummy pictures of nature, wildflowers, waterfalls, etc., if I do say so myself. Good motivation to get you up and OUTSIDE. ;>)