By the way: when I think about separate accounts it is not to hide something – it is to stream relevant content for each group. Either way that’s too much hassle for me and I definitely won’t do that.

On a side note: I tried to make Google Buzz a stream for my friends. This accidentally ended up with disconnecting some of my professional contacts from Google Reader shared articles, which is a pity. I want to read shared Reader stuff from people who I don’t want to share my statuses with. Is this so hard to understand?

Social Media to me is like playing cards while showing your opponent what you are holding. There isn’t too much hiding out there anymore. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not being involved in Social Media, but take it from this recruiter….it has changed the way we find candidates.

There is a small naming issue here. In Slavic countries we use to have only handful of real friends and the whole rest we call acquaintances. In western world these definitions work a bit differently. People have a lot of friends and I used the word in western meaning.

By the way for this few real friends I don’t need any social media. What I need (and do) is to meet them face to face. It can’t be exchanged with any social media application.

Personally I would probably drop Twitter if I weren’t blogging. I still can’t say I like the tool but since my audience uses it so do I. I think you gave a definition of a social media tool to use: if people I want to stay in touch use it, so do I; if they don’t, neither do I.

I try to work with a few separated networks so I have to cope with more tools than I would otherwise. That doesn’t make the thing any easier though.

People I work with and I know them in person generally fell into ‘friends’ category in my case too. On the other hand I have lots of contacts build over the blog or on different conferences and the only information I ever shared with them is professional-related.

By the way: I have a problem with Google Reader which I haven’t mentioned here. I just can’t decide whether I should keep shared links professional (I have all types of blogs subscribed) since my followers at Reader vary. For the moment I just don’t share anything.

You can handle a couple of blogs on a singe account although there will be still a couple of blogs. But there isn’t much hassle with running yet another blog. You spend most time writing and posting anyway. And I believe you would have much to say on both professional and private blog.

Yes I use Twitter and Linkedin mainly for my professional. I discontinued using Facebook. Buzz I like and have many real friends there but they are not going to use it so neither do I.

The real big problem is that all social media still produce very heavy stream of information that one can feel overwhelmed and one is constantly distracted from the things which matters more.
I’m trying to simplify now. I realize that sm is often only about quantity or generating more visits of personal blogs to get more money. E.g. some PMs are tweeting about every new comment added to their blogpost. Solution is what Pawel suggests – remove any one who does not produce a value and you yourself be the one worthy of following.

The real friends are only a few the rest is only an acquaintance. So my private social media strategy is at least call regularly to real friend and talk to person if cannot meet him.

Pavel

For professional purposes I use linkedin, twitter and my google reader. I don’t read non-pro blogs using my reader account because I frequently ‘share’ posts I like and they appear automatically on my blog. I think that drawing a thick line between professional and professional media is crucial to maintain some order.