If there’s any single benefit of what Chris Brogan offers to the social media world at large (and let me say, there are many), it’s that he makes you think.
Recently, after prodding from Robert Scoble, Chris created a second Twitter account. The guise of @broganmedia (that’s the first tweet, above) was to share a “more pure stream” of Chris’s content. The account, so far, follows no one, doesn’t converse and only shares links to articles, either Chris’s or those that he likes.
The idea of Chris separate from his content — or vice versa — is a strange one. In my mind, producing vast amounts of social media content is a big part of the brand that is Chris Brogan. Where’s the value of the content, if it’s separate from the man who makes it?
This, of course, is something that Chris is going to have to figure out. But what this scenario did for me was, it made me start to question the approach I’ve taken to Twitter for my various pursuits.
On Twitter, I have separate personalities. Of course, I’m @gradontripp, freelance content and social media strategist, online do-gooder, and indie rock junky. And then I’m @designboston, a stream utterly obsessed with all things architecture, furniture, and other design elements.
What value am I creating by having them separate? Would there be more value in combining them? After all, they’re two sides of one person. Me.
(I’m also one-third of @sm4sc, the Twitter stream of the organization that Matt Knell, Meg Fowler and I started in 2008 to help nonprofits use social media tools. Since SM4SC is all of us, it makes sense that the Twitter account remains separate from either one of us.)
On one hand, @gradontripp is ME. I ramble, talk nonsense, espouse my thoughts on the state of marketing in the online world, share news, music and video links, and tweet sweet nothings to Meg, much to the chagrin of some of our following (tough for them, I say!).
Having @designboston separate, it seems, makes that stream “more pure”, as Scoble puts it, but it intrinsically becomes less conversational. It becomes more about links to content, retweeting other relevant information, and be generally more distanced from my community.
But this isn’t true to who I really am. In “real life”, I’m a father, boyfriend, design fanatic, and marketer, in that order. I’m the person people go to when they want to know about a building in Boston (something Leslie Poston stumped me on last week). I’m the guy that can tell you who made what chair, and when. I continuously think of ways to improve my apartment, from storage to furniture to cookware (well, Meg helped with that one) and more.
Why am I not letting that side shine through on @gradontripp?
Would the people that connect with @designboston be willing to put up with all the non-design stuff I talk about on @gradontripp?
Would those that follow @gradontripp care to hear about my furniture obsession?
To all of these, I don’t know. What are your thought?
