Social Networking Clients Compared
With so many social networking sites out there, a person can easily become overloaded with alerts, requests etc. Anymore, it is just not reasonable to go to each separate site, several times a day and keep up with those who found a “lonely pink cow” on their farm (You know who you are).
With that said, I still believe that online engagement is critical in the church today, especially in the youth ministry field. Lucky for us, tools have been developed to aid in keeping up with all of the feeds, streams, statuses, tweets, posts, etc. The only decision is; which one do I use? Hopefully by giving you a little insite on some of the more popular “all in one” social networking applications, you can make a decision and free up some time in your day to do other things, or become even more involved with your online communities.
>We will be focusing on 4 of the more popular clients that engage in all or some of the following communities: “Facebook“, “Twitter“, “MySpace“, and “LinkedIn“. Sure there are other networks out there, but these are more prominent today.
Seesmic Desktop
This is one of my favorite clients for managing all of my social networks. It is “Adobe Air” based, so you have to have “Adobe Air” installed to run it. You can download that here. This is a good thing because “Adobe Air” applications are multi-platform capable (You can run it on Windows, Mac, or Linux). ”Seesmic Desktop” currently integrates with Facebook, and Twitter however, having just aquired “Ping.fm“, integration to over 50 social networking sites is soon to come.
If you are on a Windows platform, you might look into “Seesmic for Windows“. It currently integrates with Twitter but is only in beta. There is more integration to come, and it is a native windows application. Performance is good, and the UI is fantastic.
If you’re not interested in installing an application, Seesmic offers a web app that is currently integrated with Twitter only. It is quite nice.
Seesmic does have a mobile app available for Blackberry, and Android devices.
As quoted from their website: “Build your community in one central place with Seesmic Desktop, which integrates both Twitter and Facebook. This all-in-one tool makes it easy to reply to your friends and share text, links, photos and videos all in one screen.”
Web Site: http://www.seesmic.com
Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck is another great client. It is also “Adobe Air” based. Tweetdeck currently integrates with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. Naturally the more integration that you have, the more bloated that the app can feel. However, I think that they have done a great job not “overcrowding” the interface. It runs well, and has tons of features. If you check all of the sites mentioned above regularly, you might want to give it a shot.
Tweetdeck does have a mobile app available for iPhone.
As quoted from their website: “TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.”
“TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date.”
Web Site: http://www.tweetdeck.com
DestroyTwitter
DestroyTwitter is an app for the Twitter “PowerUser”. If you are a beginner in the client world for managing your social networks, I would probably look at others first.
Like the others, this app is Adobe Air based. It supports multiple columns. It’s integration is limited to Twitter, so if your’re looking to manage multiple social networks, this app is not for you. However, it does what it is intended, and runs smoothly.
As quoted from their website: “DestroyTwitter is a compact though robust Twitter application built to run on Mac, Windows, and Linux using Adobe AIR. It consists of a series of canvases that constantly update to keep tweets up-to-date using notifications that appear when a new tweet arrives. DestroyTwitter uses a minimal amount of memory compared to its AIR-based alternatives without sacrificing functionality and performance. As a result, it can easily run in the background as an automated process.”
Web Site: http://www.destroytwitter.com
PeopleBrowser
PeopleBrowser is the one stop shop for the information junkie. It supports many social networks. It is personally too much for me. The interface can seem a bit crowded and response time is sometimes slow. However, it can provide a wealth of information on trending topics, and what is happing in the social world.
PeopleBrowser provides a multi column web interface that is authenticated via your Twitter, Facebook or PeopleBrowser account. There is also an Adobe Air application that you can download after logging into the web interface.
As quoted from their website: “PeopleBrowsr is a data mine and social search engine for real time conversations. We’ve built a set of applications sitting on the data mine to monitor your brand, identify your audience, analyze tweets sentiment, filter the buzz, manage feedback, share accounts, run campaigns, track keywords, build widgets and engage across multiple social networks simultaneously.”
Web Site: http://my.peoplebrowsr.com
What do you use to manage your social networks? Let us know!
You don’t have to call it LIFE; you can call it macaroni salad. Grab a title that you and your students can identify with. The first year we called it LIFE, the second year was “Come back to LIFE.” “Dive into LIFE” and “Surge into LIFE” followed, so just be creative. We will refer to it as LIFE so as not to confuse you…unless you already are, then just pick up the phone and call me.
to their strengths. You most likely need to have team leaders that are organized and efficient. You can then have the designated “fun” adults that will help these adults motivate the students. When I began working with this event, I was single and in my 20’s…so I was the energy guy. I got the students motivated for the games, helped them learn chants for team spirit, and was just a strange college-age adult that connected with students. I was teamed with an adult couple that was approaching their sixties and we rocked! This is a great time to give some adults an opportunity to “try out” their involvement. It is great because it has a beginning and an end. It is not an open-ended commitment with no way out. We all like to know what we are getting into, so you can’t spend enough time explaining what tasks they will have. This is very important especially for the first year of LIFE. Once you have done it before, people will know what to expect and word of mouth is the best publicity.
