Note: this article will mention various social networking web sites. For anyone who is not familiar with the site mentioned, the name of the site is linked, and there are further links at the end of the article.

Now, it's not enough to have a website. It's not enough to take time from your client work to add something new to your web site several times a week. Now you have to do the "social networking" thing too. I thought I was doing the social networking thing by joining the Missoula Chamber of Commerce, the Missoula Downtown Association, Missoula Art Museum and various volunteer opportunities. Nope that's not enough. Now website owners have to socialize online, too!

My first experience with a "social networking" site was when I was trying to find information about a New Mexico business network. I needed to confirm the authorship of an article from their organization. So, I did a Google search and found their website. But their website wouldn't let me go anywhere without joining their "community." No contact information, nothing. Every time I clicked a link I just got a Join page. Why would I join when I din't know who they were? "Put your contact information at the top of every page," is a mantra in my web development classes, and this site was a classic example of a site with no contact information. So what does that event have to to with social networking? It turns out that the NM Business Network site was a Ning social networking site, not a "normal" website at all! That was enough to make me wary of business use of social networking sites.

As time went on, I faithfully ignored a multitude of invitations for MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and all sorts of virtual socializing. Why couldn't we just have a party/dinner/picnic with real people and real food to socialize? But, while I avoided the social networking sites, I continued to participate in online forums, such as my favorite WebProWorld, which is a great community of web professionals (and new web folks), exchanging information about web development. But, discussion about the social networking site aspect of web marketing has started creeping even into posts to WebProWorld too.

Then one of my web development students invited me over for dinner because she knows this chap who is trying to talk her into the "social networking" aspect of marketing her website. My first thought? Run for your life! You will waste your whole business day answering innane questions that have nothing to do with your business or are people looking for free consultations. "But," they will tell you, "the CEOs of major corporations are using Facebook and LinkedIn. You can have direct access to some very important people through social networking." Right, these high powered folks who wouldn't think of answering a phone call from me are just dying to become my Facebook buddies! I'll pass.

Next my client, the National Network of Forest Practitioners, joined the dark side by starting a Ning site. I tried to protest. "You will lose visitors to the main web site. Your Google Page Rank will suffer. ..." So, they put me in charge of a Web Marketing forum on the NNFP Ning site. Oh, no, I was being sucked in. Now I blog about web experiences on the Ning site. Then, in a moment of weakness, I responded to my son's invitation to join Twitter. Then, my cousin's fifteenth invitation to join Facebook. What am I doing in Facebook, the realm of teenagers and people with dubios, probably dangerous motives?

Now, the cousins are coming out of the woodwork as my friends on Facebook. My brother, the computer board developer. Doesn't he have chips to solder, instead of doing Facebook? A friend from Jr. High. Yes, I'm so old, it's called Jr. High. Now we have a lunch date next time she comes to town. OK, that's cool, but where's the business application? Oh, no, another invitation to play Mafia Wars. No, I don't want to find out which type of wine personality I am. Just give me a Cabernet and stop analyzing my compulsive personality. I'm still waiting for all the business this is supposed to bring in.

Then Dickinson Lifelong Learning Center decided to have a course on social networking for business marketing, can I teach it? Sure, I'll just spend the summer digging into the social networking experience! Anybody want my homemade doughnut recipe? I can put it on Facebook. I wrote a review on Amazon.com about a great book called. Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, and I received an email from a gent who will send me a FREE copy of his book if I will write a nice review. I already have a stack of books waiting to be read.

Wait a minute, another offer is coming in. A is gent offering to help me find hot topics to write articles about! I have plenty of topics just writing about how many people have come to me because they have been sucked into bad web development/hosting experiences. This is great! Another messages showed up when I made a comment on Twitter about NOT wanting to do a doctorate degree: Dr. Coach sends me a message offering to help me with my disertation! I wonder if Dr. Coach is friends with all those CEOs too?

I get it!!! Twitter, Facebook, and all of them are another way to deliver SPAM - to your "Friends"!!!

About Ning
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About MySpace
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About LinkedIn
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