I don’t think blogs count as social sites, i.e. they are not there for the purpose of interaction per se, that is a side effect of the ones that allow comments.

What is your take on the inevitable thinning out of these sites that is overdue? I’m tired of reposting and checking so many sites, when email always worked okay in the past. I ditched that when I got a lot of spam, and I prefer Pownce of all the me-too messaging sites as it does something useful. But… these will perish or merge, for sure!

Thanks for your comment – I’m sorry if I gave the impression I don’t want to market myself (of course I do – and I thought I was explicit about that).

Perhaps I wasn’t very skillful in doing so, but what I meant to ADD to this excellent and important conversation was an opening to explore what lies beyond marketing for us. I was trying to say that, for me at least, there is a lot more going on here.

I’m commenting on “someone else’s blog” because I read it and have a response to what Chris said in this post. There are thousands of blogs to read – I read Chris’s for a number of reasons, but largely because I’m stimulated by the conversations he opens up. I’m part of a conversation here, as are you.

I know that the “game” of using social media effectively is to engage in conversation and thus market ourselves, but I was saying there is also the love of conversation, in and for itself; the pleasure of meeting people you can learn from, the adventure of playing in a new as-yet-unbounded medium.

What I didn’t say effectively was how this relates to the question of how much energy to put out on different social media as opposed to one’s own blog. The question was being put forward in strictly commercial terms – marketing, real estate, branding, strip malls – and I was suggesting there are also other considerations at play.

I put energy into the conversations I’m attracted to, and in some cases they are consciously part of a marketing strategy, and in others they most certainly are not. I almost totally play & explore on Seesmic, for example. I exercise my personal creativity on Flickr, I network on LinkedIn, I use FaceBook to communicate with my 21 year old son and his friends AND as part of a communications strategy for the non-profit where I am a Community Tech Steward.

My point was there are different motivations for putting one’s energy and attention into different social media, and that many of us are motivated by not only commercial considerations, but by what feeds us on other levels, as I heard Albert Maruggi suggesting in his comment.

We are not just shop owners, to use Chris Penn’s analogy, and that fact will effect how much time and energy we spend on different social media sites. Some are simply “billboards”, and others are more personally, creatively or socially engaging.

Unless if you are different than, say, Dan Schawbel and Penelope Trunk, you also engage with people on Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk for the sole purpose of ultimately drawing friends and strangers to your blog, no?

So why not list your blog in the list of social sites?

Two other questions…

Josh Klein: Focusing on just StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us, do you use the sites for your own benefit or for other people to see your ratings and bookmarks?

Amy Lenzo: If you don’t want to market yourself, why are you posting a comment on someone else’s blog and moreover with your real name and not something like SweetCheeks25? Of course, you’re marketing yourself.

Sure I want people to know who I am and come to me when they want personal service and beautiful design, and sure I want to share who I am and bring my own perspective to the table, but what I really want is a good conversation, an experience of truly connecting with others or exploring new ways of being together in this extraordinary medium. I want to learn something I didn’t know before, make friends with people who astound and delight me.

Ultimately I’m in this game to see how the world wide web can benefit our collective human evolution, not market myself. I want to share my vision and inspire people. I suspect some version of that is what actually motivates many of us. Yet the economic language of the marketplace is what we know best, or has somehow become the conventional medium of exchange. Of course we need to make a living, but I’m not sure that should be the guiding purpose, or even metaphor for our online interaction and social networking activity.

Just musing here… what do you think?

Likewise, with personal branding,the different sites are all about displaying your personal “book” well at the bookstore. Is it included in those front tables, where everyone stops to take a look and read the jacket covers? Is it in the right section of the store? Did you somehow get stuck with the kid books when you wanted to be in Popular Fiction, Business and Management, Parenting, or even Technology? If you are in the right section, are you n the “end cap” as a featured author, or are you somewhere in the mix? Is you book jacket relevant to the contents inside?

In the end, the substance of what’s between the covers, what you are all about and how much personal development of yourself you have done, will determine the quality of the book. You may not always have the best seller on your hands immediately, but you’ll have work that you’re proud of, that will stand the test of time, and prepare you to continue to write fantastic work that will be significant.

Now, I am not suggesting we’re all Jane Austen or even Carl Haaisen or Dave Barry, but I do still believe that quality is more important for real engagement than just quantity. And to use Mr. Penn’s analogy, you might get better success depending on where you decide to put your billboards and be a bit strategic about the placement and how you decorate them for maximum traffic draw.