The most amazing aspect is the ease at which anyone can publish material. An individual can publish cheaply (even for free), instantly and to a wide audience– possibly a worldwide audience.

Wikipedia says:

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content.

A school student can create their own blog or website, publishing content to a mass audience, and gaining feedback on that content. People can distribute and share articles and news stories. Before the World Wide Web happened, there were huge obstacles to publishing to a wide audience. The options of television, print media (newspapers and magazines) and radio can involve huge obstacles– such as the costs, access to printing machinery, and so on.

How we communicate online

In the online world, we can communicate via email, discussion forums, support forums, blogs, chat, news groups, business networks, feeds, podcasts, video, social shopping websites, virtual worlds and a massive variety of social media websites. Twitter, Facebook and Digg are examples of well-known social media sites.

Social media can include user-generated content (UGC)– which is the members of a website creating content through posts, videos, comments, photos, reviews and other material. This is in stark contrast to traditional media (TV, print media, radio) where the material is presented to consumers.

To gain a quick snapshot of some of the sites out there, take a look at the share/ bar at the bottom of this post (mouse over it, and then click the little down button at the bottom)
StumbleUpon, Furl, SiteULike, Yahoo Buzz, ShoutWire, Xerpi, Wink, Mixx, Bebo, Diigo… are just a few. And there are more coming all the time.

Social media burnout

It’s enough to make your throw your hands up in the air and say, “I can’t keep up with all of that!”
Which brings us to another common term– social media burnout. People who conduct business online can especially feel the effects of social media burnout– to gain exposure for your business can mean exhausting hours trying to maintain a presence across a variety of different social networking mediums. A better option could be to choose the online networking media you actually enjoy, and pay a public relations expert to take you the rest of the way.

Social media is swiftly evolving, and there are many more losers than winners when it comes to social media startups. Creating a website that captures the imaginations of web users and allows them to communicate effectively and easily is a task that many entrepreneurs and programmers strive for.

Your unique username in social media

If you’d like to check if your username is available across the most popular social media websites, knowem.com offers a program where you can type in your username (or desired username) and see if it has already been registered. knowem.com “…..checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites.”

The image at the top of this page shows the know em? website.

It’s likely that people will only know fragmented pieces of you.
Foodie, comedian, registered nurse, enthusiastic debater, armchair political commentator, armchair movie critic, fiercely loyal friend, book lover, amateur photographer, mother, diabetic, bargain shopper or soccer player.

All of those things could be you. But who are you online, really?

You might belong to all kinds of different communities online. And people will often relate to you according to that part of you that is most like themselves. And that part will become most prominent in their minds.

It’s not too different to life– you’ll have different circles of friends and acquaintences, work colleagues, family, neighbours and social groups. All of these circles know different aspects of you.

A person’s perception of you will differ even if they belong to the same circle and even if they have known you all their lives. Every person’s experience of you will be unique.

Reading between the lines

In the online world, people usually can’t see your facial expressions and gestures, they can’t see what you’re wearing and your body language, they can’t hear your tone of voice and don’t know whether you stop to listen in a conversation or whether you forge ahead talking yourself non-stop.

Yet, people will probably make assumptions on all of the above, based on how they perceive you in your blog posts or your discussion forum posts.

So how do you bring YOU online?

That’s a difficult question. The more of you that you bring online, the more chance you have of someone disliking a certain aspect of you. It’s a big world out there, and there are people with greatly different belief systems and experiences to your own.

Accept that you can’t be everything to everyone.

Accept that some people believe that women can’t be comedians or that your political views suck. Really.

If you’re putting something online in a public place, you have to put on big girl pants and accept what comes. (Except of course for bullies or stalkers. These are in a different category altogether.)

Being part of a community means communicating and sharing. And the rewards of friendships, support, new networks, and of yourself growing as a person are invaluable.

You don’t have to tell everyone everything though. And you don’t have to post something the second you hear it– especially if it’s something that make your blood boil. Remember that the moment you put it out there, your words can be copied and can get a lot more mileage than you intended.

If you think your best friend looks like Elvis Presley in her new white jeans (the middle-aged Elvis) — maybe it’s not the best idea you’ve ever had to post a picture of her in Facebook with that caption.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Stick to the schoolyard rules. (Don’t lie, pick fights, cheat or steal. Be a good friend and look out for others. Play nice.)

If you’re trying to project a professional image, conduct yourself professionally. If you get huffy if someone doesn’t agree with you (or worse, call them a stupid skank/witless git etc etc) you’ve just called your professionalism into question.

Who are you online?

You’re evolving. You’re being exposed to massive amounts of information, different views, new friendships, new philosophies. You’re developing new networks and friendships.

Who you are online means different things to different people.

All you can do is to try to project the best of yourself online and be continually open to other people and new ideas. You’ll make the web a better place along the way.

What if a old friend posts a photo of you from THAT party fifteen years ago– a photo that belongs to your wild, wild days? (Or even just one night of letting your hair hang down.)

That blast from the past is now being eyeballed by everyone you know.

It’s a scene being experienced by Facebook users right now. An old friend or acquaintance posts a group photo and tags your photo. (Tagging is simply inserting the name of someone in a photo.)

So what do you do if an embarrassing photo of you pops up?

Well, you can untag it. If you look for your name below the photo, you’ll see the option to remove the tag.

Another thing you can do is to stop people from searching Facebook for photos of you altogether. (At the time of writing this post, there is apparently no way of blocking people from tagging you though.)

This post in Gadgetwise by Paul Boutin explains step-by-step how you can block people from searching for photos of you on Facebook.

If all fails and you see that photo on your office wall on Monday morning (copied from Facebook and blown up to poster-size by one of your wonderful work colleagues– remember that when we’re old, we’re meant to regret what we didn’t do rather than what we did do.

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