As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this all began as way to promote my online businesses, the Southwest Observer and Poken Chicago.

It began as way to get the messages out there but instead of blasting all the Southwest Observer posts on every social network, I thought I should do it in a more deliberate way, and that's where I came up with idea of multiple online identities - all individual facets of my personal brand.

What do BMW, Samsung, IBM have in common?

They've all used the latest Poken feature - pokenEVENT - to host amazing events and brand them like crazy.

Here's how it works: The organizer of the event or the corporate sponsor adds custom branded elements (e.g. a banner) to the Poken Member Hub. Everyone associated with that particular event can see the branded elements.

But it doesn't end there:

This social media project is an ambitious one for me, someone who has very little free time on his hands to begin with: I have a full-time job, a wife and two kids, a house to maintain and a couple side projects.

This isn't a revolutionary idea; there are people out there who are very effective at managing multiple online identities across several social networks. In my case, though, I'm trying to manage three distinct online identities across about 15 different social networks. Why?

Because it's a challenge.

I’m putting together a social media manual of sorts for my companion site, the Southwest Observer. Actually it’s more like a manifesto, and at 32 pages and counting, it’s becoming a bit overwhelming. Still, I think it’s worth it.

But what a transformation: One year ago my only foray into social media was my LinkedIn updates.

Poken #1: Where am I?