So I started noticing how much time I actually do spend in front of a screen and realized I had enough time to start looking more closely at social networking sites and strategies. But it does take a while to fully examine all the options out there and hopefully this series of posts will save you some time and you’ll walk away with a better understanding of how to make these tools work for you.

I started by taking a few hours and signing up for the 4 most well-known services; Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. Here’s my initial impressions of each:

Facebook:
Profile Address/User Name: Jennifer Nickerson
Sign Up Process: A little involved, but it’s damn eerie how the names from your past start popping up when you fill out where you’ve worked and gone to school.
Ease of Use: Fairly easy and basically what happens once you sign up is you are allowed to contact people you may know who are already on Facebook and ask them to be your Facebook friend. Then they can post messages for you on your “wall” and you can track what they’ve been up to as well.
What’s in it for me?: Online networking that doesn’t feel like “speed dating in a tie”. You can post a link to your website in your profile. Your profile includes your Wall, Info and Photos on a tabbed page.

LinkedIn:
Profile Address/User Name:http://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifernickerson
Sign Up Process: Fairly involved, but the more complete your profile, the better your chances of getting a connection to a potential client/employer/employee
Ease of Use:Fairly easy, once you enter the Profile process. Similar connections look-up functionality to Facebook.
What’s in it for me?: This is Facebook and MySpace’s older sibling with a briefcase and a firm handshake. You can connect with other members and trade recommendations for each other. A couple of nice features are the Amazon Reading List (lots of potential for you Amazon Associates out there) and the ability to list more than one website in your profile.

MySpace:
Profile Address/User Name:http://www.myspace.com/jennnickerson
Sign Up Process:Not bad, but there’s no lookup function built in.
Ease of Use: Could be better. You have to be fairly pro-active to take advantage of all there is and there’s 18 themes to choose from. I now understand all those Craig’s List “Pimp My MySpace Page!” ads. Also, when I tried to add my profile photo it seemed to upload fine, but the photo placeholder was still in place. Nothing tells one to click on the uploaded image and then designate it as the “default” photo. In these days of instant Avatar creation, this seemed a little lame to me.
What’s in it for me?: It’s another way to get your name out there and if you want to create a profile focused on your business, it couldn’t hurt. If I was a little bit (OK, a lot) younger, I would focus on it a little more, but for business/colleague networking purposes, there are better options.

Twitter:
Profile Address/User Name: http://twitter.com/jennsweb
Sign Up Process: Painless and there’s a look up function for finding other users you may know and the ability to send them invites.
Ease of Use: Pretty easy and their blog is fairly useful.
What’s in it for me?: You can stay in touch with your friends and co-workers but it’s passive tracking. You just check on people you are “following” and if they’ve made updates you can read them, but there’s no need to respond if you don’t have to.

Jenn Tips:
Here’s a few things to bear in mind before you plunge into the bottomless pool that is online social networking.

1: Gather together a list of all your email contacts and have it handy. Any format is fine. I actually keep a handwritten one since my webmail doesn’t have the capability to print out a list. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook allow you to search for potential connections via popular webmail services such as Gmail and Yahoo, but if you don’t have a full contact list on each account, then the reference list comes in handy.

2: Build good Linked In karma by offering to trade recommendations with others.

3: Decide which website you will always list on each service and get that website in good shape before signing on.

4: Take advantage of RSS feeds, Favorites Folders, bookmarks, or whatever it takes to make these sites easy to find while you are online. Use easy-to-remember but not obvious passwords and treat these accounts like you would your best friend’s dog while they are out of town. Cobwebby profiles can be a kiss of death to a potential connection.