I have recently decided to seriously spend some time focusing on how to improve my Lifestreaming workflow. I have found that creating an effective workflow is one of the most challenging aspects of Lifestreaming. I don’t feel my current method is very good and needed to change. There are many variables that will determine your workflow. Which tools & services you use to create content (Flickr, YouTube, iPhone) as well as the networks you post them to (Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter) will dictate many things.
Here are my plans and goals.
- Identify all my current desktop & mobile tools currently used to post content
- Look at how content is currently displayed on the services I’m posting to
- Review my cross-post and sync methods across all my existing services
- Modify the tools or processes currently in place making them more effective and eliminating duplication
So the catalyst for me getting this process started was posting photos from my iPhone. I no longer wanted to use Twitpic. I currently sync my twitter account to Facebook. I want my mobile photos to be displayed as thumbnails in my Facebook feed as opposed to tweets with a Twitpic link. FriendFeed displays the Twitpics fine, but I want the best solution across all services.
I’ve been doing a little research on the various services out there that do cross-posting including Pixelpipe, Ping.fm, and Tarpipe. After some testing I’ve started to experiment with Posterous’ auto-posting features. So far I’m pretty happy but have issues with duplication based on my current workflow.
Steve Rubel’s Lifestreaming Workflow
Then the other day I noticed that Tweets from Steve Rubel are using the FriendFeed short url service yet are linking to his Posterous. So I went back to read his Lifestreaming Workflow post. In it he gave the overview on how he captures, processes, and shares content but not the nitty gritty details. Luckily a commenter posed a question that prompted Steve to provide the details I was looking for.
Steve’s secret sauce
That information helped me understand how he was doing it. I’m not a fan of relying on RSS to get scooped up because I like the immediacy of posting but it got me thinking differently about how to improve my workflow. I’m willing to make sacrifices to my workflow to remove duplicity and RSS is quickly improving around the needs of the real-time web so it may not be an issue in many cases.
Anyways, I will continue testing and improving my workflow and will post the results once I have reached a comfortable process I decide to use. In the meantime I would love to hear about your current methods and possibly include them in my future post. Either leave details in the comments or you can email info to me.
I've been using http://tweetpo.st/ because it does a much great job with posting tweets to Facebook, but I'm not digging it completely. I really need a Twitter -> Facebook filter, if anyone has any idea please let me know.
Tumblr fixed their Facebook integration, and so I'd like my Tumblr -> Twitter -> Facebook to stop. So I'd like any post with http://tumblr.com/* to get filtered from getting pushed to Facebook (unless I flag a hashtag to force it). Same with Posterous posts.
Really, my only issue with double upping is Twitter -> Facebook. And there are a number of tools out there that post to Facebook and some of them even allow filtering with the #fb tag. I'd just like more filtering, even if it's something as difficult to understand as RegEx.
Here's hoping!
Here's my process in case it helps.
For pics I email to posterous, which autoposts to Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook. I use the Selective Twitter Facebook app to only pull tweets that end in #fb.
I don't import Facebook into Friendfeed.
I do have duplicates posted into Friendfeed via the posterous post and the tweet but I usually clean up my feed every couple of days so I don't really worry about it.
Facebook is a very different social network for me than Twitter or Friendfeed so there isn't much need for import/export content other than posterous photos or selected tweets.
I need to better manage lifestreaming as I get duplicate entries appear across many sites that I have to then moderate. Thanks for providing the above post as it provides an insight how to better manage the many social media profiles!
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another great post, I'm trying to sort out a process for myself. My issue is that I am running several online personas. With some sites only allowing a single log in, it means I can't use the same process for each… unless I use multiple browsers… or someone has any other ideas 🙂
Thanks for posting this Keith. I've continued to do some testing and still struggling to find definitive workflows that work. This is very difficult stuff.
Thanks for posting this Keith. I've continued to do some testing and still struggling to find definitive workflows that work. This is very difficult stuff.
Gah, multiple personas. I can't even imagine having to keep that straight. Good luck.
Gah, multiple personas. I can't even imagine having to keep that straight. Good luck.
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