make some noise with Amy Wood

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Getting started with social media

This blog is designed to help you get started with social media. 

Facebook is the easiest starting point.  Just go to http://www.facebook.com and SIGN UP.  Once you are set up you’ll begin getting requests from people to be a “Facebook Friend”.  When you know the person, accept.  When you don’t know them, don’t. 

Here’s Facebook’s guide to setting up your PROFILE http://www.facebook.com/help/new_user_guide.php#/help/new_user_guide.php?guide_section=set_up_profile
Then you need to find your friends http://www.facebook.com/help/new_user_guide.php#/help/new_user_guide.php?guide_section=find_friends

The key to Facebook is plugging in your personal info and setting up your privacy settings, to a level where you are comfortable.  The best, is to make it so that only your “friends” can see your info.  I would suggest setting your profile picture to public, so that if an old friend is searching for you, they can tell if it’s you or not.

Here’s what Facebook posts about privacy
  You can customize your privacy settings from the Privacy page. From here you have total control over who can view all of your content. Please note that, at most, only your friends, their friends and the people on your networks can see your profile. If you want to adjust who can find you in searches and what they can see or do with your search result, just edit the settings for your Search Privacy.                                                                                                             
      Finally, you can use the Block feature to end all interactions with a user on Facebook by entering their name in the “Block People” box. Once you find them in the search, click the “Block Person” link to the right of their name. They will no longer be able to find you using Facebook.    

Twitter is another fun social networking site.  You can send out messages, from your mobile phone or your computer, once you’ve signed up, giving you loads of flexibility.  Head to http://www.twitter.com to create your user name and password. 

If you create a fun twitter name (mine is TVAMY) make sure you also put your real name down later in your account information so people searching for you by your name can find you. 

Learn more about what to do once you are on Twitter in this blog I wrote.  http://bit.ly/m0gc

Status updates on Facebook can be updated using Twitter.  To connect the two, head to http://ping.fm and plug in your info.  Then when you want to post updates just head to ping.fm and your comment will post in both locations.

Have fun!  All of my social networking activity is centralized on my blog site http://www.theribbit.com You’ll see my links to my Facebook page, Twitter and more.