Cyber Imprints

Social Media sites are websites that allows the subscribers or members of that website to socialize with one another through the sharing of comments, pictures, videos, and other online interactive activities. There are numerous social media websites that are present in the World Wide Web. Each of these websites caters to various groups and has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some of social media websites that I encountered through the years are Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, Yahoo 360, and Plurk.

Social Media Optimization, or SMO, is the process of creating awareness of your blog through the use of social media websites. It is opposed to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that focuses more on increasing the rank of a blog in search engines. Because of the continued prominence of social media websites, successful bloggers utilized them to promote their blogs and reach out to more readers.

I also use SMO to promote my blog posts. The social media websites that I currently use for my SMO are Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster. Prominent bloggers already attested the effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter as SMO tool. I have not seen any review for Friendster.

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Friendster is one of the leading social websites in the Philippines and it still boasts of thousands of active Filipino users. Though, many of its veteran members shifted to Facebook. I observed that very few bloggers use Friendster as a blogging tool. 

The main page that is fronted to other Friendster users is the Profile page. This page contains the self-description of the Friendster user and the comments made by his/her friends. The profile page is the main page where a blogger can leave links leading to his/her blog. Bloggers could also use the Friendster bulletin for blog promotion.

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Facebook picked up the comment elements of Friendster and expanded it. Interactivity in Facebook is through posts that are posted by the Facebook user and is visible to all of his/her friend’s Facebook main page. His/her post can be commented by his/her friends and the comments are showed in a nested form. This ingenious mode in Facebook promotes online conversation because commenters reply to one another.

Facebook is more blogger friendly because it is easy to post links that lead to your blogs. An added bonus is the use of Networked Blogs that automatically pull your blog post and is ready to be posted on Facebook.

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Twitter is almost similar with Facebook in that it also uses the posting system that could be found in Facebook. The main difference is that you are limited to 140 characters (space included) for your posts or more popularly known as tweets. This limitation is not a disadvantage though because many people subscribed for this websites and that includes successful bloggers. Leaving a tweet could even be made through SMS messaging of mobile phones.

Of the three social media websites that I used, Friendster is the least effective, which is followed by Twitter. The most effective is Facebook. Friendster contributed 17% of the readers coming from social media sites, while Twitter contributed 33%. Facebook, meanwhile, contributed 50% of the visitors.

This simple statistics only shows that Friendster is not a good platform for social media optimization. The possible cause of this is that the facilities where I place links to my blogs is usually ignored by Friendster users. Whatever the reason, it only means that Friendster has to redefine itself to be more blogger friendly.

For better social media optimization, I suggest that you both use Facebook and Twitter. These two websites were somehow compatible with one another. An example of this compatibility is a Facebook application that posts your tweets on your Facebook wall. 

You can stay away from Friendster when doing social media optimization and you will not be missing anything.

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For more information on how to use Friendster as a blogging tool please read “How to Get Inbound Links to our Blog.”

Further comparison of Facebook and Friendster could be found at my article “Facebook vs Friendster.”

Logos of Facebook, Friendster, and witter are under the copyright of their respective owners.

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The chat box is one of the cool features of Facebook. Once you are logged-in in your Facebook account, you could send and receive instant message from your contacts and friends. And just like other chat boxes, like in Gmail and Yahoo Messenger, Facebook chat can also use chat emoticons or smileys. Facebook chat emoticons are not just ordinary smilies. Facebook has a load of cute chat emoticons that you could use to spice up your chat or you could use to amaze your friends.

Some of the Facebook chat emoticons that are available are the usual emoticons like the :-), :-(, and :-P. A variety of Facebook chat emoticons can also be used and some of them are animals like the penguin and shark.

Here are some Facebook chat emoticons:

I just came across this list of Facebook emoticons on one of my friend’s Facebook wall. It is good to use, especially, to “WOW” your friends.

So, what could you say about the Facebook chat emoticons? They are quite cool right? Now is the time to amaze your friends. And while you are at it, add me as your friend in Facebook.

For more Facebook chat emoticons, go to this website.

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In the previous post, I talked about some ways to ensure the safety of your Facebook account from hackers and identity thieves. Now, we will talk about some things that a Facebook user should/must not do on their Facebook accounts.

As the Facebook increases its popularity in the Philippines, peculiar news related to this social networking site are becoming more common. I heard of a news report of a woman who complained to the police that someone is scattering her naked photos online. She admitted that she uploaded her naked photos so that her foreigner friend in Facebook could see it.

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There other news like that and many of those incidents could have been avoided if they just followed these tips:

News today is abuzz with a certain Mai Mislang, who is a speechwriter of President Noynoy Aquino. Mislang was in hot water after posting tweets that takes pun of Vietnam during the president’s state visit at that country. Mislang’s tweet not only shamed herself but also shamed the president, who is now out defending her.

What happened to Mai Mislang is also applicable to all Facebook users. Never post status or comments that you will be ashamed of in the future. Never post status or comments that is incriminating and might be used to sue you.

Before posting anything, always think what your love ones or even your children (or grandchildren) will think of you once they read those posts.

I talked about a certain woman who is now ashamed because somebody is scattering her naked photos in the Internet. The rule of the thumb is to never upload any of your private photos in Facebook, especially those photos that shows you naked or doing private “activities.”

Facebook may have security features that you could use to restrict the persons that could view your private or naked photos. However, always remember that there are times when bugs and other problems arise in Facebook that could disable these security features and will leave your private or naked photos exposed to the public.

There are so many applications in Facebook. Some offer fun games and other give perks to the users of that application. There is catch with those applications, however, because these applications will always require you to let the application access all of your personal information, even those that are protected by security settings.

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Be wary of these Facebook applications because phishers use these applications to gather personal and private information and sell those information to interested buyers.

Join Facebook just for the fun of it and don’t place detailed information of your life there. In the address info, placing your current city and country would be enough. Don’t place your full address. 

Facebook may require you to place your cellphone number and e-mail address. That is fine because that is a requirement, but you must make sure to adjust your privacy settings so as to keep those information from being seen be people other than your friends.

Also, don’t overshare information. Your contacts or friends might want to know your thoughts or what you are doing, but I guess it is not ok to put in Facebook that you are in the CR and defecating. You should also remember that your Facebook wall is open to all of your Facebook contacts. Never post anything that is just intended for a few people. You could always use private messaging for those things.

Many people became victims of criminals in Facebook because they are too trusting. Wake up! Their many posers and pretenders in Facebook. The profile picture that you will see may not be the actual person who owns the Facebook account. Many sexual predators befriend women and children in Facebook and lure them into meeting up with them.

Be careful with the people you meet in Facebook. Don’t give your 100% trust to anyone in Facebook if you just met or befriended that person in Facebook.

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These are just few things that you should not do on Facebook. Of course, there is so much more things that you should avoid. If you have more of these things in mind, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Noise to Signal Cartoon came from GetElastic.

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