Facebook! Myspace! Twitter! What do all of these bring to mind?

Certainly not those stories of stalkers et cetera, or Internet predators. Of course, there’s always that danger for children, but I’m talking about using social media for practical use.

Networking is important as it can bring us the best opportunities in addition to allowing us to be more familiar with the people we are around. Social media is one form in which networking can be accomplished; through social media, networking is made much easier in that it opens us to the people of the Internet – billions and billions of users all across the world which may provide further opportunities to connect.

As I stated in my last post, some of the best ways to build a good network are to get out there, show an interest, and not be shy. The same is true of an online network; show an interest in other people, and they will show an interest in you. However, there is one other thing which people forget to do: be themselves.

I cannot emphasize this enough. One of the most important parts of building an online presence is to simply be human. Many people forget to be themselves and become robots. Who honestly wishes to be friends with a robot in contrast to a quirky, human individual? Personally, I find myself drawn much, much more to quirky people than robots.

Some points to remember in the light of social media:

1. Having many friends and contacts does not make you a “social media expert”. To be honest, I feel it is more important to have a following of people which are interested in you as a person, and what you do or write about, moreso than to have a large amount of people reading what you write. While it can be an ego-boost to have twenty thousand twitter followers, would you rather have a twitter following which is more interested in your last name because it comes up as a search term, or a twitter following that is interested in what you are actually doing?

   This statement comes from reading the blog SEOptimise. One of the major pet peeves of the writer seems to be the fact that people follow him because he shows up under the search of Chef simply because of his name – as opposed to his words on search engine optimization.

2. Even if what you’re interested in has nothing to do with the main topic of your blog, don’t be afraid to admit that you’re interested in it. As I stated in an earlier post, being interesting is one of the first steps towards building a major network. This blog in and of itself has, over the months during which it was first conceived on Blogspot to now, experienced more than just design posts. I’ve cooed over Haxx0r, my beloved Green Cheeked conure, wrote my thoughts on poverty, and even started this series of blog posts which compile the many things I’ve learned through the years on how to network successfully – which, by the way, is still design-related, but something that I find to be of use and interest to everyone.
3. Blog about what you know, but don’t limit yourself to only certain subjects. Yes, it is certainly a good idea to have a general theme for your blog (it’s not only great for search engine optimization, but can contribute to any particular community). Sometimes, you’ll find that a blog post which touches on something completely different from your other posts will bring you an even greater following – but don’t confuse this with my earlier point of receiving followers over bad keywords. Here again, it adds more humanity to your blog.
4. Link your social media profiles. I’m particularly bad about not linking all of my social media sites together; my Facebook is not linked to my Twitter, nor is my LiveJournal account linked to my Facebook, et cetera. Of course, some of these sites I do prefer to keep separated – for example, my LiveJournal tends to have my more private thoughts (though of course, it is probably a good idea to keep “private information” off of the internet – the less possibility of access there is, the better, but this is another can of worms). As you can see in the sidebar, I like to keep this blog linked to my social media sites – my twitter, my DeviantArt, among others. I use a plugin for this, but it’s easy to keep your accounts linked through a little bit of inventiveness! Plus, more contacts on any one site equals that much stronger of a network.

The Internet has acted as a catalyst for globalization. This is not a bad thing, as it allows a wider range of networking opportunities, which can be very powerful. Many interest groups – including third world countries – have utilized the powers of the Internet in order to bring more attention to their concerns. In addition, businesses have searched with ways to be linked with their markets – and created sites just to do this (now do you see why I named the site what I did? BeLink’d, Be Linked, get it? Yes, I am aware I have a terrible sense of humor).

You, too, can use the power of the Internet for your own purposes. With the global economy failing, networking will become a very important aspect when it comes to displaced workers finding new jobs, and for interest groups to bring attention to themselves. How and whether you use that power is up to you.