A Few Reasons for NOT Linking Your Social Media Accounts

Today is officially Day 1 of the Summer Holidays.

Summer A and E Visits So Far: 0
I had positive feelings about this. I thought, "They'll sleep until midday anyway, so I will have peaceful mornings to get some work done, and then we can be all happy joy joy in the sunshine all evening."

It's 11.22 a.m. and we've had pancakes, unauthorised wrestling, a duct tape incident, hair removal, threats to call childline (because, OMG, there are no cocoa puffs) and minor injuries. However, there has been no zombie apocalypse and we must be grateful for small mercies. If there IS a zombie apocalypse, we are completely prepared.

I am keeping track of the antics on twitter, because the teenagers (hi guys!) aren't on twitter and I can totally say anything I want there. For now. Which brings me to the original point of this post: Why NOT to link your social media.

I know that it's quicker to link your social accounts, but to me, they are all so different and wonderful in different ways that it makes sense to use them differently.

 Facebook makes for wonderful conversations, sharing inspiration with colleagues and friends. On facebook, you can post photos, links AND quite lengthy questions and comments. There is a feeling of give and take and lots more in depth discussion. I follow several great freelancing and writers' pages and there is often valuable information there.

Twitter users are limited to 140 characters, and it's just not as much fun to 'chat' on twitter. I like to scroll through and read short, funny or informative snippets there. And I tend to post tweets where I don't need or expect any feedback. It's easy, I can use my phone and jot something down without thinking. I suppose this is why people get into trouble more often on twitter. You can forget that people are actually reading your random ramblings!

Linkedin is purely professional. I'd rather prospective employers had a really good look at my linkedin profile first, so they get a solid first impression of professionalism and nice reviews... And THEN get the nonsense about how I didn't get any work done this morning because of the Summer Duct Tape Incident of 2013.

Pinterest is purely visual. I use pinterest for art and design inspiration, mainly. And occasionally, I browse the funny stuff. We're moving house soon so I've been checking out studios and home office design for ideas! I'm so looking forward to having the space to work. I've actually earmarked the big lounge as 'My Room', while what would have been the main bedroom will be the lounge - teen hang out - playroom. So I'll have space for an office/studio. And I guess my bed will have to fit in there too!

One final reason not to link up your social media accounts: If one is hacked, it's not the end of the world. It happens, people!

IN CONCLUSION: By all means, link your accounts. But if you do, I won't be following you on all of them. Remember that it is possible to copy the link on, say, your pinterest board, and share it on facebook. Or twitter. If you think it's suitable. But automatically having everything go up everywhere at the same time just might be counter productive. Unless you have other brilliant ideas to share for happy linking - Let me know!

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Nan is a regular contributor to several popular magazines and has read and told countless bedtime stories, some of the best of which were made up on the spot.

Nan is actually not keen on spiders. But she absolutely loves talking about herself in the third person, and it is possibly the largest contributing factor to her desire to become an author.


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