Social Media Platforms: The Kyoto Maiko Rundown

Before I go any further I have two big announcements to make.

First I want to thank everyone who suffered through my 24 hour SOPA/PIPA post. Political posts are not, and never will be, a feature of this blog, but the language of those laws was terrible. Everyone across the political spectrum was against these bills, and the chilling effects it would have on bloggers needed to be shared. Thank you for your understanding. Such posts will occur only in the direst of circumstances.

Second, Sarah Vickers of Kiel James Patrick has just launched her own prep style blog Classy Girls Wear Pearls, which can be found on my blogroll. Please enjoy.


If there is one thing that I think brings my two "commenter groups" together in a single thread, it is my behavior posts on blogging. Maybe it's a bit meta to blog on blogging, but aside from a few Anonymouses (Anonymi? Anonymeese?), and non-blogger users like Bitsy, most of us are, ourselves, bloggers. And by virtue of this fact, our blogs interact in a wider blog community. We don't just have conversations on our own blogs, we have them across blogs, and across the internet. For that reason, I felt it would be important to go over how Kyoto Maiko (and I personally) uses the various social media platforms.

Blogger - Clearly this consists of my main blog. A combination of categories with outfit posts of myself and others, historical photos, travel photos, and of course, behavior/blog posts like this. Sometimes photos only, but usually very word heavy. This is the center of my blogging universe, and increasingly the center of my social media universe.

Tumblr - Posts on the blog are carefully crafted. Only the best photos of large sets are selected. Tumblr I see as a repository of all, or most, of the images I take. Showing my readers the raw material of how my image posts are constructed. I will sometimes post or reblog the content of others. But this is a rarity. The vast majority of content will be my own. The subtitle of my tumblr is "Often Original Content" and I mean it. I think using tumblr just to post photos you like is fine too, but it isn't for me.

Twitter - I love twitter. I use it mostly to connect to people I normally would never have the chance to. Yesterday I traded a few sentences about Reality TV with Lisa Birnbach of the The Original Preppy Handbook. Very mundane, but to think that it makes such mundane conversations seem possible with anyone you might wish to talk to is amazing. I also use it to post my own links to tell people when I have updates, and to follow the links of bloggers I don't normally follow or visit every day via blogger but might still care to read if a title jumps out at me. V of Grit & Glamour has spoken about this, and it is precisely how I decide when to jump in on her blog. If her tweet seems interesting to me- I go for it. However, @Kionon is my personal twitter, and sometimes that means political or religious comments that I would never allow on the blog itself. Ask the readers time, do you believe Kyoto Maiko needs its own twitter account to keep these separate?

Facebook - No. This is entirely a personal space for me. Not related to my blog. I have worked in politics, and this is how I keep track of friends, coworkers, and fraternity brothers. This is where I am extremely politically active, and have many heated debates about spirituality, religion, and politics. I would like to keep this entirely closed off from my blog, and I am worried that even a fan page might start to generate too much crossover.

Google+ - Use it pretty much like twitter at the moment, but don't use it nearly as much. I think it's really powerful, but I am not yet sure how to harness that power. Big problem is that some of my friends and fraternity brothers do not have Facebook, but do have Google+ and this means that even while I post blog content, I can get into heated debate with individuals. Twitter's format prevents this because of the character limit. Google+ does not. Unsure how to proceed.

Other services - I think at this point, much as V tweeted not too long ago, any other services would be too many to handle. Several people have asked me if I have an Instagram. I don't, and I probably don't want one.

So dear readers, how do you think Kyoto Maiko should be using social media, and how do you as bloggers or blog readers use social media? I am curious to know.

Fair winds and following seas.