The Social Networking Guide for Newbies

Now that you've found your network(s), signed up, and created your profile, it's time to network yourself within the community. Start by connecting with people you know. You can either search them out using one of the site's friend finding SEARCH features, or invite them to join the network. Also try searching for friends by interest. Even within the large network sites, there are smaller communities and clubs. Think of these large social networks like a vaster version of your high school cafeteria: you can move around at will and talk with anyone, but you'll probably be most comfortable with your friends and people who share your interests.

These groups -- whether informal (most network sites use terms like "friend" or "pal list") or more packaged (communities with specific topics, moderators, and rules for joining) -- function essentially as internal e-mail programs where you invite someone to your group by sending the user a message. This is usually delivered both to their network mailbox and their private, off-network e-mail.

Step 5 - Enjoy your new connections.
Depending on the network you joined, you will be able to do many things with your friends, including sharing news and media through your profile or in private messages, and exploring other people's profiles and commenting on them.

Part II: What Can You Do on a Social Network?

Things to do in a social network.
Most social network users follow a routine when they login to the network. Think of this as the way you go through a newspaper. There's no right or wrong way of doing it; some just prefer to read the comics first, or check the front page. Likewise, on networks, there's no order for your daily interactions. The following section of the guide details some of the options you'll have in your network.

The simplest of network tasks is viewing your own information. When you log into a network, the first thing you will see is your own home page. From here, you can check your messages and add or edit content. At any time, you can change your presentation (in the physical external layout of your profile page) or what you want to tell people about yourself (by editing the text of your profile). All social networks have internal mechanisms for these changes. Many provide templates which allow you to change the background color scheme and layout of your content. As you become a more experienced Web citizen, you may find it useful to learn HTML, the coded language behind the scenes of the Internet.

One of the more common uses on social networks is "blogging." Short for "Web-log," a blog is essentially an online publication that is open to other users of the network. Various levels of privacy can be set up if you don't want everyone to see what you're writing. Some networks offer open community blogs and others offer you private blogs. This online publication or journal can be subject-focused or often is a chronological record of your thoughts and the events of your life.

In most networks, you can supplement your journal with photographs and video. So after you've written about your amazing vacation to Paris, you can upload individual pictures to accompany the text or an entire album. Many networks also give you the option to include userpics (small photos that accompany your username on anything you do in the network). Some sites offer features to upload albums of photos for special events.

The specifics of the upload process can vary, but the network itself should have a help page that explains it step-by-step. In general, you must first bring the photo into your computer via a scanner or digital camera, save it, and then follow your network's instructions for uploading (adding) it to the site.

If you keep your journal, photos, and video open to the public, you can take part in the most important aspect of social networks: commenting. Anything you add to the network -- photos, video, a rant, or a poem -- can be commented on by your fellow users. Likewise, anything another user creates is open to your critique. If someone made you laugh or made you angry, you can tell them. If you want to help edit a piece of writing, you can make suggestions. If you want to see what a friend is doing later tonight, you can do it through comments. It is the most social part of your network experience.

There are two other aspects of social networking you should be aware of: the bulletin board and the chat room. Both are designed for group discussions, but they function quite differently.

Bulletin boards.
A bulletin board works like a filing cabinet for everyone to access. It is always divided into topics, and the discussion of any one item in a topic is referred to as a "thread." So, if you are on an automotive bulletin board, you can find the broad topic of a 1964 GTO, for example. This is basically a drawer in the cabinet. If you then went to a thread (an individual file folder) marked "How do I rebuild a transmission?" and had advice on that subject, you could add your 'page' of insight to the thread.