I’ve had more than one person ask me why I don’t have a public Facebook profile. In general, I have a fairly open social web presence.  Considering that most days I’m neck deep in social technologies, I spend a lot of time thinking about social connectivity and the ways we enable people to share information. I also pay fairly close attention to how I’m portraying myself online. I don’t limit myself to only tweeting or blogging about subjects relevant to my profession. I began blogging while I was planning my wedding and that’s pretty personal. Having an honest, authentic representation of myself online is important to me. That doesn’t mean, however, that the world needs to see all the intricacies of my life.

The bulk of my social profiles are general information sharing, but I treat my primary Twitter account (yes, I have multiple) and my Facebook profile differently.  I reserve Facebook for my close, personal social circle – family, high school and college friends, and other people who have been or are currently involved in my daily life. The information that group consumes and shares is very different than my Twitter friends or LinkedIn connections. They don’t care about my latest social media discovery, conference highlights, my infographics obsession, or a pithy quote about the internet.  They do care about my plans for the weekend, what’s going on with my family, and the occasional lolcat. The personal and sometimes private information I share on Facebook doesn’t belong in a search engine. It belongs with my friends. The bonus of Facebook is that I’m able to aggregate the relevant bits of my web presence in one place.

Yes, there’s overlap between my professional and personal social circles, but that overlap is a choice. It’s a choice I want my friends to make based on their interests. It’s a choice I make to not force feed irrelevant information to people who are only interested in one part of my life. It’s the same choice I made when I created a special account to tweet about wedding-related tidbits. The vast majority of my Twitter followers weren’t interested in my wedding planning, but there was another crowd that was very interested in wedding planning who definitely didn’t care about my professional interests.

Ultimately, social technologies are tools. I decide how best to maximize each tool’s capabilities. It’s my job to evaluate each social network on its own terms and determine how it best fits my life, my social circle, and my needs. Once I understand it as a user, I look at how best I can leverage that tool for my company. All too frequently, I see people trying to apply the same formula to their social presence across the board. They’re often the people who simply create redundant content instead of trying to master the nuances of each platform. They’re also “the collectors” who boast 10,000+ followers and follow just as many.

For those who espouse that the socially savvy need to have a certain number of LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook followers, I respectfully disagree. I think you’re missing the point. The shotgun approach to social media does a disservice to your followers and to your content. After all, social media is supposed to be a two-way street, isn’t it? Do you really think anyone is getting heard in the midst of all that noise?

Social engagement isn’t about numbers; it’s about relationships. Getting 10,000 people to follow you on Twitter doesn’t mean you understand social dynamics and relationships and it doesn’t mean you’re actually listening to anything those 10,000 people are saying.* When you’re following that many people, I assume you aren’t listening and in all likelihood, you probably won’t be a good investment of my time or attention. The volume of tweets alone means that what a single person is saying probably won’t ever reach your eyeballs. Why should I bother?

In the same vein, why do you really want to follow me on Facebook? Is it because you actually care about the content I’m creating? If you aren’t really interested in what I’m saying, then why exactly do you want to be my friend? I promise you there aren’t any prizes. Leave the popularity contest in high school where it belongs.

I choose to be social on my own terms. I want ‘social’ to not just refer to a type of technology, but to its true purpose. I don’t want to be part of the deathly silent user-generated content abyss that consumes most of what we produce. I listen and I’m hoping that listening is contagious.

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*I felt a tad guilty making the ‘people following 10k+’ generalization because there are some who seem to quite skillfully and responsively manage twitter streams of 10,000+. However, when someone adds me and I see they’re following that many folks, I look at the profile. Specifically, I look at whether the person is conversing or just spouting/talking to and/or about themselves. If they pass the Twitter-profile-at-a-glance test, I’ll follow them back. I do apply the unfollow button quite liberally, however.

For two examples of people who certainly seem to successfully manage their 10k+ following habit (courtesy of the recency effect), see @AmberCadabra & @ginidietrich.