Get A Life (ONLINE) Part 2: Social Networks
Hopefully you went out and got yourself a Gravatar after reading the last post. Now we can move on to Social Networks. There are literally thousands of social networking services out there, so this can’t be a full-blown review of all of them — or any for that matter. What this post will do is show you the main types of social networking sites that are out there, and give some recommendations on how to use them.
Definitions
According to Wikipedia…
A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services
Some of the more popular social networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and LinkedIn. Each of these sites have their own online market-share. Facebook is a great place to join with friends a family; Twitter is a wonderful way to form a broad range of connections (however loose) with many different folks; Myspace seems to be trending toward music and has many bands using their service as their social hub; and LinkedIn is a good place to form and develop professional connections.
You can see that in just these 4 social networks there is potential to eat up tons of time. Here is my recommendation: Figure out what type of network you need to align yourself with (personal, professional, niche, etc.) and pick 1 or 2 and do them well. I have fallen into the trap of signing up for dozens of social networking services in an attempt to cover the most ground. I have found this to be unhelpful and may have harmed my ability to network effectively.
I have recently decided to stick with Twitter (follow me) for daily interaction with those in my niche market (Web Design, WordPress development, and Ministry Related Media), and Facebook to keep my personal online world in check. All others have sort of fallen by the wayside, which has ended up being good thing. Now I can give adequate attention to the ones that have proved most useful for me.
Getting Started
Signing up for a social media site is easy as filling out a quick form. Most services offer a way of checking against your email contacts to see if there are people you know already involved. This is a great way to kick start your network. Then, just make sure to keep up with it. If you’re on Twitter, make sure to post a status every once in a while. If you decide to go the Facebook route, maybe try to post some pictures, update your status, or comment on other’s activity.
Social networking is a great tool to get a life online, so jump in and get started — and most of all HAVE FUN!
Join me next time for Get A Life (ONLINE) Part 3: Keeping Track with RSS
5 Responses to “Get A Life (ONLINE) Part 2: Social Networks”
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It’s amazing how much social networking has grown! Thanks for helping people get a life!
Social networks provide the tools for conference attendees to “socialize” before, during and after the event.
[…] now you have your Gravatar, and you’re plugged in to a social network or two. You will notice shortly that it is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information […]
[…] Get A Life (ONLINE) Part 2: Social Networks […]
Those are the two best in my opinion. I listen to LastFM all day, but I rarely mark a track as “Loved” so it doesn’t do much good. If you’re on a Mac, you should check out a program called SweetFM. It is a great player for LastFM.