The emergence of social media tools have left us in a veritable frenzy keeping track of all our networks, but tools like Ping.fm make it easy to update our status on multiple networks.

In all marketing textbooks, they always drive home that the message should fit your targeted audience. So this leads me to ask, “As we market our own personal brand (bloggers, consultants, etc.) online, do we utilize these one-stop-shop social media tools?” I argue that the audience I am reaching on LinkedIn is much different than the one I am trying to reach on Facebook, and the audience I’m reaching on Facebook is different than the one I am trying to reach on Twitter. I really don’t want my professors, colleagues, peers, or future employers to really know what movie I watched recently or what I think about the last episode of So You Think You Can Dance.

While the ease of these tools is attractive, it may not be the best bet for your profession (I recall another blogger calling it the “Swiss Army knife” of marketing tools. I’m sorry I don’t know who gets the credit for this reference). Marketers, remember to target your audience before you hit ‘Enter.’