Social Media Overload!

With social media virtually taking over the internet and changing the way we communicate, it is no surprise that public relations and other industries directly related to communicating are rapidly changing as well.  I was perusing www.prnewswire.com the other day to get some ideas for a press release I am writing when I saw an ad for yet another social networking website!  Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, Youtube, Ping, and now ProfNet!?  While there is no doubt many of these emerging social networking sites (SNS's) are bound to fail, considering the already existing e-infrastructure, I cannot help but question how far this social network expansion is going to continue.

I went on a pr field trip a couple of weeks ago to McDonald's Corporate Office and the JSH&A pr firm in Chicago and almost every move made for campaigns whether it be promotion, marketing, placement, etc. involved social media.  This is the atmosphere that I am going to be entering into and while I consider myself SNS-literate, if these sites continue to grow at an ever-accelerated pace, I fear it will be impossible to "keep up with the Jones's".

The current venues available for social media are at least manageable.  It is also becoming easier to manage various SNS accounts through Google or SocialBeat which link your various accounts together.  I wonder, with such linkages, if eventually all the available SNS's will come together as one vast network where everything can be reached from a single website.

In any case, it is safe to say that SNS's are not a fad and will be around for a long time to come.  Five or six years ago it was Myspace, now it is Facebook and Twitter... the venue may change, but SNS's are here to stay.  Anybody have any tips or suggestions on how to best utilize them?