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In today's digital age, it's not enough to be friendly in person. Maintaining your social networks online is fun and engaging. At first, a newbie to social networking might consider that online relationships are inferior to in-person relationships. However, an experienced social networker knows that online relationships are personal and easy to manage. Not to mention trendy.
Steps
Before jumping into social networking, consider what your demeanor will be online. Some social net-workers use social media to exchange exciting ideas in any area from tech to finance to cooking. Others blog on emotional content such as dating and relationships. Decide what information you are comfortable with presenting online.
Next, start living the exciting life of a social networker. Begin with a free-access social networking site like Facebook. Facebook allows its users to “friend” one another and share photos as well as other features. Facebook is recommended over MySpace for a variety of reasons such as less advertisements and larger monthly growth rate.
Once you are familiar with the content of sites like Facebook, you can move to more sophisticated and specialized social networking websites. One way to do this is to pursue your interests and hobbies. For example, if you are a wine enthusiast, you can join OpenBottles or ProjectVino if you like Australian and New Zealand wines. You can also include your pets in the fun with sites like Catster and Pawspot. Social networks are often great places to discuss the news. Sites like Digg allow users to vote on or "Digg" which stories they like. Some social net-workers even participate in dating websites. If you are interested in sharing other forms of content such as video, photos and music, YouTube, Flickr, and Pandora are all good sites. The goal of this step is to transition from your original friendship base constructed in the previous step to broader friendship bases of shared interests.
Next, build your online personality. At this point, you likely have many online friends. Maintaining a blog is a great way to disseminate news, opinions, or any message. Sites like Blogger are a great starting point. Go to here for steps in starting a blog. If you are still not ready to start a blog, Twitter is a micro-blogging and social networking service. Twitter users post short status updates called tweets. If blogging is too “out there” for you, online diaries such as My-Diary are a great place to privately write your thoughts. Other websites, such as Me Too Campaign at Duke University allows social networkers their to post their feelings anonymously.
Lastly, some social networkers find that blogs are not interactive enough. The final and optional step is to take your social network into the virtual world. Sites like Second Life allow users to control their avatars inside of a virtual world where avatars meet, play and interact with one another. Other sites like IMVU offer 3D avatar chat. Virtual worlds serve as an extension of social networks providing users to share experience.
If you use Gmail, add your Twitter feed right into the sidebar. You can do this with the Twitter Gmail gadget through the labs setting in your Gmail account.
Warnings
Some employers investigate the social networks of potential employees . If you have content, which might prevent you from getting a job, take that content down. Also, you can temporarily deactivate your profile. Some social networks even offer privacy settings.
While social networking is fun, not everyone you meet online can be trusted. Occasionally you might friend a creep. But don't let the occasional weirdo deter you from social networking.
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