Thu 15 Jan 2009
Social networking is not for the faint of heart.
My first adventure into social networking was MySpace two or three years ago. I’d tried a couple of other sites, like Gather and Goodreads, but I never really got into them and consequently forgot my username and password. Well, that actually happens a lot because I’ve got too many of those, matter of fact I have logonarrhea.
Anyway, I really got into MySpace and had a blast seeing how many interesting “friends” I could add, reading bulletins and sending them out, and leaving comments on friends’ profiles. Although some profiles are too busy and annoying, I still believe MySpace is a good, free tool for creating a webspace for bands and projects. But I’ve moved on.
About a year ago a colleague tried convincing me that Facebook was better. It took a while for me to try it out. After all I already had a MySpace page, not to mention profiles on a couple of Ning sites—one for the SB Writers Conference and one for local producers. Those types of webpages are good for small, concentrated groups and can be customized to suit the participants.
I’m not counting Linkedin because it’s more of a professional or business site. You definitely need to build up your Linkedin connections if you’re looking for a job or more clients.
Finally I signed up for Facebook. The benefits surfaced right away. I didn’t have to pimp my profile or chose my top friends, and I can see what all my “friends” are saying, and the comments by their friends, as soon as I log on. Some people I don’t talk to too often and in person details don’t come up like they do online. But now I know that cool person is into kickboxing so I have something to talk to them about next time I run into them. It’s a fun way to get to know others better.
Then came Twitter. It’s amazing what you can say in only 140 characters. You can give your “Followers” business tips, a weather report, or a link to your latest blog post. How do you get Followers? I registered myself on a couple of Twitter directories, Twellow the Twitter Yellow Pages and WeFollow—which lists popular tags that help people find you and your content. But you don’t have to follow me to get my tweets, because I’ve set it up so you can just come here and look at that little box in the right hand column. Plus my tweets do double duty because when I post on Twitter my Facebook status is automatically updated.
One of the definitions of twitterpated is the ever increasing acceleration of heartbeat and body temperature. And that’s exactly the way I feel when I see somebody new is following me on Twitter.
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