So now you have made a decision on the platform you wish to use. At this point, depending on your age group, the next question that springs to mind is either “How to I build a bigger network of friends after I have already linked to the twenty people I regularly interact with” for the younger set…..or “How do I make sure my profile is visible to those I want to view it, but hidden from those I don’t want to view it”.
The first question is easier to answer and depends on what your interests are. Most social media platforms allow you to form and join groups centered around your interest. Joining such a group will allow you to interact with like minded people within the same platform and if you want, to invite or be invited as a “Friend”. I know of people who like the game, Pet Society on Facebook and play it every day. As the “wealth” of your pet is dependent on how many people within your network also play this game, the larger your network of players, the better. To ensure their network grows, they post on the Pet Society forum that they are open to accepting friends. A friend of mine went from 25 friends on Facebook to 363 friends in less than a week…..the balance of “friends” all being players. A female friend of mine got a similar number of new “friends” just by posting a sexy picture of herself on her profile. It drew friend invites from men like honey to bees. There was a study (I forget from where) that found that people on social media sites with more than 200 friends are narcissistic though!
The second question is a little harder to answer and is also dependent on the sites you use. The first question you have to ask yourself is what you want from being part of this social media network. If the aim is just to link with people you already interact with frequently in the real world, then it is probably worth blocking your profile from being seen by others. If you want to reach out to those whom you know from a long long time ago, then I would suggest putting sufficient information on your profile to identify yourself, but not so much that it could be embarassing. I like the way Facebook does it. It only shows your name, picture and how many mutual friends you have. If you don’t recognize the picture, odds on its not the person you know. By tightly controlling your profile information, you effectively limit the number of people you can reach out to. In the minds of some Social Media users this is sacrilegious, but the truth is I would recommend such an approach for new users who are testing the ground and especially for younger users who may have less maturity and understanding of how to handle certain degenerates who proliferate on these sites.
There are many studies done on social networks (the offline/real world kind) and every study I have read states that a normal person can develop deep relationships with at most 180 – 200 people at any one time. On Social Media sites, this is actually lower. It may appear counter intuitive, but the need to maintain your profile online to a wider contact group actually leaves you less time to interact significantly with more than about fifty people at any one time. As with all social networking, the there is always a depth vs breadth tradeoff and only you can determine what balance you want to strike.
Some Meowsings...... 