Social Networking Overload - How to Manage 50 Social Networks with 1-Click Using Ping.fm

Do you feel overloaded with the weight and time consumed with updating your social networks? There is a simple 1-click solution - Ping.fm.

The Problem...When it comes to managing social networks, it is difficult to stay active in more than 2-3 social networks at a time. Often, we gravitate to 2-3 sites and ignore the rest. A major part of the problem is that participating in most social networking sites includes the repetitive task of "updating your status." If you participate in more than 2 or 3 social networking sites, this can be a time consuming and repetitive task. It goes something like this "find password... go to website... wait for it to load... log in... post... log out." After 5 or so updates, your eyes will start to blur.

Cross Posting as a Partial Solution... Some sites are slowly solving the problem. Some sites allow cross posting from site x to site y. Other sites allow you to pull data from site y to site x. Most the applications developed seem to focus on cross posting to or from Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or photo applications like Fickr or Facebook. However, there has been little attempt to develop a coherent platform (until now).

The Final Solution - An Integrated Single Source Platform... Now, Ping.fm allows you to send or post a single message - whether a blog post, microblog post, or status post - across and to multiple social networking sites.

Social Networks on the List... Ping.fm currently supports approximately 50 social network, blogging and other sites, including: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, GTalk, Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Identi.ca, Brightkite, FriendFeed, Blogger, Plaxo Pulse, LiveJournal, BeBo, Hi5, Mashable, kwippy, Xanga, WordPress, Rejaw, Delicious, Friendster, Yahoo360, Koornk, YouAre, Yammer, Flickr, Utterli, Imeem, Seesmic, Laconi.ca, Jaiku, and Vox.

How Do You Set It Up? After you create your Ping.fm account, you simply enter into your account information and password. For some sites, you also have to log in and authorize access for Ping.fm. This process is time-consuming, but it is better than the other alternatives - not updating your status or not participating in as many social networks. Once set up, you can then send message with the click of one button. Ping.fm allows you to enter your message by using the interface from their web interface, by e-mail, or by instant message. Also, Ping.fm automatically shortens URL addresses using your preferred URL shortening provider. Although I have yet to figure out how to use them, Ping.fm allows you to use "triggers" to post messages only to certain networks or groups of networks.

My Mea Culpa...In conclusion, one small piece of advice - remember to turn off your existing cross posting settings on your social networking sites before you send your first ping. Otherwise, you might just end up irritating your followers on Twitter by inundating them with the same message over and over. I did just that when I was testing Ping.fm. To my Tweeps,sorry about those multiple posts.

If you are interested in affordable sales training for your sales staff, please contact Ryan Shaughnessy at PREA Signature Realty at 314-971-4381 or by e-mail to Ryan@PREASignatureRealty.com.