The Real Value of Social Networks

For quite a while, I was nothing more than a social network hater. To me, social networks seemed like a ploy for those with so-called “notoriety” to massage their egos just a little bit more and provided no real benefit to anyone. After signing up for almost every social network in existence, I can say now that I was dead wrong. Whether it’s Twitter, FriendFeed or even Flickr, I’m extremely surprised by how much value each provides. And although I can’t speak for everyone who uses these services, I honestly believe that each is unique and useful enough to justify your time.

Here’s why:

Twitter is, in my mind, the very best way to communicate with just about anyone on the Web. With my Twitter account alone, I’ve been able to find a slew of great stories and column ideas, understand and communicate with my audience, and find hundreds of friends that prior to my joining the site, were just readers. Today, those same readers have let me into their lives and I’d like to believe that we’ve formed a tight-knit community that is no longer a one-way street.

And that, in my mind, is what social networks are all about. No longer is the Web confined to a one-way street mentality where content creators and service providers perform a particular task and the users are in place to consume that material.For once, the Web’s users can finally interact with each and the old practice (especially in my business) where the content creator creates and the content reader reads, is over. Now, you have a solid grasp on who I am and what I’m up to and I probably have that same sort of grasp on you.But perhaps what’s most interesting about this phenomenon isn’t necessarily that it’s happening, but rather that the idea of privacy is central to the entire argument. As we’re constantly being inundated by companies and online services that are trying to breach our privacy, we’re constantly ready to forego it in the name of friendship.

But how can we have it both ways?

Almost every day we’re presented with stories about government spying and companies selling private data, but we’re still more than willing to upload photos to Flickr, tell the world what we’re doing at any given moment and sometimes give our phone numbers to out on Facebook.Invariably, this presents a major problem. If we want to live anonymously to stay under the radar from peering eyes, how can we expect to do that when we use social networks? But alas, the real value of social networks has nothing to do with privacy. Although it is a major concern and all of the services are doing what they can to keep your information as private as possible, I think it’s quite obvious that if the government or any major company wants your information, they’ll have it regardless. Realizing this, I think most people have seen the benefit of using social networks and understand that having no contact with the outside world on the Web is not the kind of environment most of us want to be a part of.So as we traipse out into the wild where strangers become our friends, we do it knowing all too well that some of the wrong people will know us too. But as I’ve quickly discovered, the good people far outweigh the bad and having the opportunity to exchange ideas, communicate with others and feel like you have an impact on their lives is what makes social networks great.

Twitter… I’m following you… :)

“So, what are you doing?”, it’s one of the first questions we’re often asked by our friends and family. Even if the answer is just ‘mowing the lawn’ or ‘cooking dinner’, it’s interesting to us. It makes us feel connected to each other’s lives. Unfortunately, most of our day-to-day lives are hidden from people who care about us. Of course, we have emails, blogs and phones to keep us connected. But, you wouldn’t send an email to your friends to tell them that you’re having coffee. Well, not all of you friends need to know that. But, what about some people who want to know the little things in your everyday life. Remember, real life happens between blogs and emails. Luckily, now there is a way to share your life with people who care about you.

Thanks to Twitter, now you can share short and byte-sized updates about your life. You can share all the updates with the people on the Web who care about you. Here is how it works: Mr. Sushant – he has mobile phone, writes blogs and has contacts from all over the world. When he heard about Twitter he was skeptical, thought it’s just one of those new sites spreading much ado about nothing. But when his friends couldn’t stop talking about, he gave it a shot. He signed up for free and found out that Twitter looks like blog with short pots. Each page is personal and has little, nice and interesting updates from friends.

He got started by looking for people on Twitter.com. After finding a few, he clicked “follow” after seeing their updates on the Twitter page. Within hours, he began to follow different types of people that were interesting to him. He didn’t know that Bryan from Utah is a baseball fan or Julia in London was reading an investment book. It was the real world. Soon, he became fan of Twitter and spent time to put updates about himself to let his followers know little things about his life.

The best thing is, he can now to twit from his mobile phone (using twitter software) from anywhere of the world. Thanks to Twitter, Sushant feels more connected to his people who truly care about him.

Can Twitter Help Your Cause Raise Money?

Can nonprofit groups really raise money on the social-networking site Twitter? The author and social-media consultant Beth Kanter has studied the history of fund-raising efforts on the site and answers with an unequivocal yes. Writing on Beth’s Blog, Ms. Kanter points to several examples of successful fund raising-efforts on Twitter. In one case, a heart surgeon in India raised more than $5,000 for his charity, the Heart Kids. The popular blog Mashable raised more than $3,500 using Twitter for Charity:Water, an organization that builds wells in Ethiopia. Ms. Kanter writes that charities need to make sure they build appropriate networks before they begin appealing for dollars. “I can’t stress the importance of community building or rather network building,” Ms. Kanter writes. “You don’t go into using a Twitter strategy without having built up a little social capital.” For more tips from Ms. Kanter on how to use social networks such as Twitter, check out the transcript of our recent live discussion with Ms. Kanter and Jonathan Colman of the Nature Conservancy in Washington. In addition, the Chronicle recently hosted a live discussion on Twitter for Nonprofit Groups.

Got Twitter?

Twitter is a new social networking site.

I agree with others that say it has the potential to get hundreds if not thousands of hits to your site if you have the ability to post interesting “updates”.

Sign up at Twitter now and let’s keep in touch.
Here’s how wikipedia describes the service:

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, the Twitter website or an application such as Twitterrific. These updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and also instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to members of his (sic) circle of friends, or allow delivery to everybody (which is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, or through an application. For SMS, currently two gateway numbers are available: one for the USA and a UK number for international use. While the twitter service itself is free, posting and receiving updates via SMS typically incurs a charge from the wireless carrier.

How to Build a Network on Twitter

I’m spending so much time on Twitter because I feel it’s such an important tool for Network Weavers.

Someone asked me how to get started on Twitter. Some thoughts:

1. Figure out what you want: learning, marketing yourself or something, getting to know new people, just mucking around?

2. If you know other people on Twitter, start following them. Then check out who they follow (we call this getting to know your friends’ friends). If their posts look interesting, follow them. Many of them will turn around and start following you. In the first ten days, I started following 38 people and now 31 are following me.

3. Check out twitterlocal.net and see who in your town or neighborhood is on. Follow the ones you know or find interesting.

4. Use search.twitter.com and put in key words to find people interested in the same things you are. I tried civic engagement, transition cities and self-organizing. Then I used TweetBeep.com to keep me posted when anyone says anything about those topics.

5. Think of people you have little connection with: people from different ethnic or racial backgrounds, people with different political views, urban people if your rural (and vice versa), etc.

6. Watch other people’s retweets or RTs (they put @person’s name) then if you like what that person says, click on their name, read some of their posts and start following them.

7. When someone starts following you, send them a nice note.

8. After awhile, stop following people who never post or who’s posts aren’t up your alley, and try some new names.

What ideas do you have? For those of you with Twitter experience, what have you found works?

Let us know your experience in getting on Twitter!

Courtesy:networkweaving.com