Aggregation, Syndication, Integration... Part II

1 : to subject to or manage as a syndicate
2 a : to sell (as a cartoon) to a syndicate or for publication in many newspapers or periodicals at once; also : to sell the work of (as a writer) in this way <a syndicated columnist> b : to sell (as a series of television programs) directly to local stations 

— syn·di·ca·tion  \ˌsin-də-ˈkā-shən\ noun

— syn·di·ca·tor  \ˈsin-də-ˌkā-tər\ noun

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Syndication is another part of a solid social media and social networking strategy.  One of the biggest pitfalls of social media and social networking is maintaining a presence in many locations.  It can be a serious time suck.  Updating a bunch of site individually could take hours...  Even just keeping up with all of the profiles could be more than many people could handle. 

Luckily, there are some tools that can make life WAY easier.  Posterous, AtomKeep and FriendFeed are three that come to mind...

Since we recently talked about FriendFeed, as an aggregator, we can start there...  It is unique, in that it both aggregates AND syndicates on multiple platforms.  Through FriendFeed, you can make a post from Twitter show up on FaceBook, and dozens of other sites.  You can also have posts or activity from other sites reflected onto Twitter (or where ever... Twitter is used as an example).  Bringing in the data from a bunch of sites is aggregation, while putting the collected information out to a bunch of sites is syndication. 

AtomKeep is unique in that it is designed to only handle one aspect of your social media presence... your profile.  Through AtomKeep, you can write the profile once and then syndicate it out to many sites.  Updating can be done in one step, rather than individually updating dozens of profiles...  There are limitations, since the least flexible platform rules all others, but it is a great way to handle to platforms on which you are least active. 

Finally, the new kid on the block is Posterous.  It also has an aggregation capability, but the cool part is that you can email anything to Posterous and have it automatically routed to the appropriate sites (on which you participate).  Pictures to Flickr, FaceBook and Twitter.  Videos to YouTube.  Blog Posts... you get the idea. 

The key to maiing effective use of social media and social networking is to be efficient.  Getting your message out to multiple platforms in one step is part of that efficiency... 

However...  Another aspect of an effective social media presence is INTERACTION.  Don't just spam your message all of the time.  Remember to spend time interacting on the sites to which you are paying the most attention.