What is Social Media
Social Media are websites that let you interact with other people who are using the same website. For example, when you comment on blog posts, forums or pictures of people, you are using social media websites.
Popular Examples of Social Media
Facebook is a popular social networking website that allows people to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues.
Twitter is a website that allows people to write short sentences called tweets. Twitter members can write tweets and follow other users’ tweets. It is a great way to get up to date information about the news or even your favourite sports team.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia created by a number of people. Anyone registered on the site can create an article for the site and it can be a good way to find information about a variety of topics.
Pinterest is a website for sharing images you find online. People can pin pictures to their websites called ‘boards’. You can find great recipes, information how to create things, as well as create your boards of things you enjoy.
Skype is a free voice over internet protocol (VOIP) service that allows users to communicate using an internet connection. You can use voice only, video, or instant messaging. Skype has grown to be the most popular VOIP service in the world and serves millions of users each day.
How to Use Social Media to Keep Relationships Going
Social media is a great way to keep in touch with people you may otherwise not see regularly. You can share photos with a family member who may not live in the same country as you, or find out information about your favourite sports team or news happening in your city. But always remember to be cautious, only become friends with people you know on Facebook and do not give any personal information out to anyone you do not know on any of the other social media sites.
A great way to get live face to face contact is to use a service that lets you have live video communication such as Skype or Google hangouts. This is very useful when you want to stay in touch with someone who does not live close to you.
Getting started
Signing Up:
Visit the homepage of the site you would like to sign up for. Facebook is more personal, so it’s best to use your real name, while sites such as Pinterest let you be creative and you can choose a username of your liking. Either way, you need to use your real email.
While some social media sites require you to only enter a username, password and email, others take more time completing and may ask you to upload a photo as well as some more information about yourself. Ask someone you trust ,a friend or family member for help if needed and ask them to explain to you some of the rules of using the site.
How to Use Social Media
Status Updates:
You can update your status to anything you’d like to share with the people on your Facebook. That can include anything from how happy you are that your favourite team just won a game to the lovely weather you’re enjoying today.
Putting Website Links in Status Updates:
If you have a cool link to a website or an article you’d like your friends to seealso, you can share the link right on your status update.
Tags and Mentions:
If you’d like to make sure specific people see your status update, you can tag them in it. All you have to do is put the @ in front of their names in your status update and they will get a notification informing them of the tag.
Privacy:
You should only friend people on Facebook who you know in real life and try to keep your settings private. Ask someone you trust to help you set your privacy settings to make sure only people you trust can see your page.
What to Post:
Remember to ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’. If you want to post something about a friend, ask yourself if this is something you’d want posted about yourself. Likewise, if someone is posting anything about you that you don’t like or feel uncomfortable about, let someone you trust know.
Remember that although social media can be great to keep in touch with friends and family, it is still really important to have live in person contact with your friends and family. It is not healthy to spend all your time in front of a computer, tablet or cell phone.