I’ve always enjoyed Google’s cartoon-like logos, often commemorating occasions I had no idea existed. That cartoon-around-the-logo actually has a name (but what else would we expect from Google?), the Google Doodle, and here’s a brief history of the Doodle from MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan.
Remember that if you installed a Google toolbar on your browser and use it for search, you’re missing out on the Google Doodles altogether! So make it a point to visit the landing page from time to time. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
So now you have a whole list of places to visit, bookmarks to make, RSS feeds to subscribe to, toolbars to use. In a sense, the question becomes the same one that I ask of my clients/students who are writing: so what?
Now that you’ve had a chance to look at a few of the social media sites, whether general-interest communities or those existing for a more defined purpose, you may be wondering exactly how to go about making them work for you.
It’s actually fairly easy. What it takes is time, and willingness to be open and helpful, and a little organization, and … did I mention time?
Communities on the Internet aren’t all that different from communities in your city or school or group: you get out of them approximately what you put into them. If you’re helpful, courteous, and willing to share, you’ll find that others are as well.
Here are a few ways to make social communities work for you:
- Help Others:Instead of feeling like you need to jump right in and tell everybody all about yourself, spend some time at first listening, figuring out what’s going on. A lot of questions are asked on these sites. Find some that you’re comfortable answering, and help others out. A tone of humility and frankness rather than arrogance is your ticket to success here.
- Contribute: This is along the same lines, but takes the first precept a step further. Social communities are all about content. Provide useful content for others and they will reward you in return.
- Connect: Somewhere along the line here you’ll start making connections, whether or not you refer to them as “friends.” This is your opportunity to meet people with the same interests that you have, who can become resources for you, part of your expanding network of Internet contacts.
- Expand: At first it’s difficult to think of contributing more than a paragraph or two. But as you get more comfortable, you’ll find yourself sharing links, pictures, videos as well. Let it happen. Relating via multimedia is one of the greatest strengths of Internet social communities.
None of this will happen overnight. People who use social media for marketing spend eight hours a day on these sites! While you won’t be committing that kind of time, you do have to understand that visiting your Facebook account once a month isn’t going to make you feel a part of the community.
Again, it’s not so different from Real Life. I frequent one particular pub, the wonderful Squealing Pig in Provincetown. I went there for weeks before the bartender remembered my drink (for the record, it’s Guinness). I didn’t go every day, but I kept going and kept going and gradually started knowing people—the owner, the bartenders, the regulars. It’s a comfortable and comforting place now, but only because I made it so.
think of your social community as your own pub and see what develops! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Now that we’ve looked at some social networking sites/communities specifically for writers and readers, let’s take a step back and look at some of the most popular “standard” communities and sites. Here’s where you can meet up with people who aren’t necessarily in your word niche.
- Possibly my favorite current site is Stumble Upon. You download a toolbar to your browser and indicate your areas of interest (art, literature, sports, games, etc.), and then simply click the icon to be taken to a site that falls into one of those categories. Don’t like it? Click again. I’ve found amazing information that way. You can also rate sites that you find so that others can stumble upon them, too.
- Okay, can’t have a list without the requisite reference to MySpace, the first and still most famous of social networking sites. It provides blogs, instant messaging, updates on friends, and forums. It’s being used in a lot of interesting ways—through the use of multimedia, for example, bands can get their music out to the world. There’s a lot of noise there but it remains a rich and interesting environment.
- And right behind MySpace (though not necessarily in popularity) is Facebook, which started as a way to connect with classmates and is now a place to connect with the world. From the website: “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.”
- Don’t have time to put together a website? Put together a “lens” instead at Squidoo! Find information, share information on a myriad of topics through the overview pages it calls lenses.
- AOL’s Bebo is a general social networking site that offers a “social inbox” (organizes your web-based email and adds media recommendations), a “lifestream platform” (updates from your friends in other social networking communities), and a “lifestory” (that “provides you with an interactive display of life events in chronological order in an intuitive and easy to use timeline. Lifestories are made up photos, videos, stories and special events that you want to record or schedule”).
- Second Life is a visual community — in many way, a second life. It’s a hard landing (you need to create an avatar, clothe him/her/it, learn to get around, etc.) but well worth the effort. I co-authored one of the chapters in Wiley’s second edition of the Official Guide to Second Life so obviously am very much at home there. Think video games without the game part.
- Google’s Orkut is accessible with a Google account and, while it seems to be another general social networking site, does not offer the promised demographics (or at least that link is broken) and shows testimonials only from those who have used it for romantic connections. However, your mileage may vary: give it a try!
- Twitter is the site that has the news media all a-twitter; it restricts messages to short bursts or “tweets.” Takes a while to get to really understand its uses, but a lot of people swear by it. Find me there at JCez.
Specialized Sites
A couple of specialized sites that are worth a look if they apply to you:
- The PLAN Institute’s Tyze is a site providing personal communities for caregivers of chronically and/or terminally ill individuals.
- Match.com is the grande dame of dating/relationship sites and offers something for everyone: gay matches, Jewish matches, African American matches, senior matches. To my mind it’s the best of such sites as it operates without the hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda of some of the online dating communities.
- Care 2 is a cause-related community site: healthy green living, human rights, and snimal welfare.
Is that it? Hardly: I’ve just begun to scratch the surface here. But these are some communities you might want to explore if you’re new to social networking. The idea, of course, is to really try them out—a quick tour of the “about” page won’t tell you much, but getting to know people in each of these places will.
Want more? Here are a few you can check out:
- YouTube — Just about any video you’d care to see (or create!) is here
- flickr — A place for your pictures online
- metacafe.com — despite its name, not a Sartrian place for philosophical discourse, but rather videos and music
- technorati — a search engine for the blogosphere
- blogcatalog.com — find a blog
- propeller.com — yet another AOL site
- kaboodle.com — “shopping is more fun with friends”
- i-am-bored.com — sites to explore when you are — wait for it — bored
- reddit.com — what’s new online
- slashdot.org — news for nerds, a very smart and often funny community
- blinklist.com — a way to save and share website addresses
- smallbusinessbrief.com — Internet marketing and business news
And these are just a sampling of what is out there. New communities are forming daily, old ones morphing … the only thing you can say with any certainty about the Internet is that it’s constantly changing. But don’t be intimidated by the numbers; you don’t have to participate in everything! It’s like Real Life: find a place you like to hang out with people whose company you enjoy and go for it.
Mostly, have fun. That is, after all, what it’s supposed to be about. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
A few sites that were overlooked in my previous post:
More as they come in! Check them out and you’ll stay … beyond the elements of style!
