I found this video by Perry Belcher on social networking and it is right on Target.

He talks about people wanting to know how you can make money on social networking?  His answer? You don’ t make ANY money on social networking! You make friends and connections with social networking.  Eventually down the road, you probably will “sell” them or someone they know something, but that’s not really the point of social networking.

Perry Equates Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube with acting the same on your social network as you would if you were going to a big party!  You don’t walk around a party you are invited to saying.. “Buy this.. Hire me.. Come to my store..” or if you do, you aren’t making many friends at the party! You try to connect with people at the party. You might look for people that live near you, or that you are in the same live stage with or that you have similar interests with.

Perry Belcher says he doesn’t know how women start up a conversations. Well Perry if you ever read this article I’m going to tell you the big secret! Women usually meet and then start sharing things about themselves looking for commonalities…. kids, church, hobbies, husbands, single, married, divorced, empty nester… If we find something in common then ZOWIE, we are off and running and will be sharing our innermost secrets within minutes!  We also often will compliment one another on something not necessarily to start a conversation or a relationship but we might want information.  An example would be  “.. I just love your earrings.. where did you get them?”  So that woman is flattered that you not only thing she has great taste but now she gets to do something women LOVE to do.. she gets to pass on her shopping expertise!  “OH! Thanks! I got them at this great little boutique over off of Mainstreet. Sally Jo is the owner, tell her Jackie sent you.”

Social networking is just like THAT! You are on Twitter, you just found the worlds best Mexican Restaurant in your town.  You Tweet that.. someone else says oh I have been wanting to try that spot, they love it, they say thanks for the tip, you’ve established you both love Mexican food and you live in the same area.. pretty soon you are meeting at Starbucks and finding out more things you have in common like she says one day.. oh WOW My husbands company has a website and he told me  it never gets any traffic, isn’t that what you do? … well hey “Yes it is .. I can help with that…”  and now you have a friend and a client, but you never made a dime from being on Twitter.

I find myself on Perry Belchers Blog quite a bit!  You might really enjoy his stuff too so visit him here.

This was my status update from one of the many automated social networking services that are all over the net right now. PING

“I am testing my sms to blog, facebook, myspace & twitter. by ping.fm! awesome service for posting info across platforms.”

You can set up many of your social networking accounts including Facebook, Facebook Pages, Twitter, your blog on WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, myspace, twitter, plaxo, FriendFeed, Flickr, Vox, Brightkite, delicious, yahoo 360, all the instant messengers, HootSuite (A Twitter tracking program) along with a host of others.

You can update from the ping.fm site itself or from your cellphone, Iphone It’s a very inclusive service that seems to work quite well.  Social Networking can be time consuming without one of these very clever Web 2.0 applications.

How about it?  Is the picture you use in social networking or on the “about me” page on your website an accurate representation of what you actually look like?  I know most of us are our own worst critics and we don’t want to scare folks away, but you seriously MUST use a photo that people can recognize you from if you are ever going to have “real life” interactions with them as customers, clients or mentors.   To have a meet and greet at a coffee shop and have them sit there two feet away and not recognize you does nothing for your credibility as an honest professional.

Women have a harder time with this since we often change our hair color, length, style and can look significantly different from month to month and it’s not cost effective nor time effecient  to have to update your picture across all of your social networks.  When I have a new client that I’m meeting I’ll tell them that I am a blonde now or I’ve cut my hair so they aren’t looking for a woman with long red hair instead of short blonde hair.. this usually seems to work.

Guys,  you really have to get a new picture up if you now have WAY less hair than you used to, it used to be dark brown but now not so much or you used to be clean shaven and now have a full beard.  Normally men don’t change their look as often as women do so you don’t have a good excuse to not update your online profiles.

If you want your potential client to trust you and feel good working with you, this seems like a no-brainer but it happens all the time.

If you are a single checking out the online dating scene this is ever MORE crucial.  Most ladies will never give you a 2nd chance at impressing them with your honesty.

What do you think?  Have you ever been in either the position of not being recognized?  Or been the one searching for the person you are meeting and unable to identify them?   Share you thoughts here.

This article talks about twitter etiquette. If people follow you, what are your responsibilities to them?

Do you HAVE to follow? I have found that I only want to follow those people who are dead on topic for me with either SEO, SEM, Website Design, Blogging or simply those people that are within my state as I enjoy those connections as well. To just follow anyone and everyone that follows you created a huge waste of time for me, and even more things to look at and decide if they are worthy of my time. I am experimenting with having more than one Twitter “face”. I have my @yourwebchick profile for my business interests and @veryhappywife for the more girlie side of me that likes to learn and discuss things like gardening, photography, parenting semi adult, empty nesters, scrapbooking etc. I haven’t spent much time making connections on that one yet so I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.

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Linked In

I just discovered some great new applications that Linked In is offering to members. I’ve linked my absolute favorite here With this one you can link your blog directly to your profile so not only can people look at your statistics in your profile they can also check out any blog posts at Blogspot that you’ve made lately.

There are several other applications that look worth trying as well. including
One here for WordPress Blogs
Your Reading List by Amazon .

Just look to the bottom right of your profile page and you’ll see an add applications button.

If you aren’t on Linked In yet, you should be. I think it’s the #1 “Social Networking”  sites that all professionals should be on. It is more geared towards business than it’s cousin Facebook.  You can search by topic, location to find folks you might be interested in networking with, there are 100’s of groups you can add for things you are interested in in your personal life and in your business life.