Social Media for SL: Strawberry Singh's Latest Tutorial Walks You Through The (Virtual) World of Social Networking

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

So you've got a virtual world blog, and you've got a virtual world brand. Maybe they're commercial or maybe they're personal; it doesn't matter, because either way you want to get them out there. You want eyes on pages, clicks on links, and to feel a little less like you're just talking to yourself out there.

Lucky for you then that Second Life's favorite tutorial-loving fashionista, Strawberry Singh, has penned a new post about the top social networks for SL, and how to get the most out of each of them. I've got a few tips of my own, for that matter, so keep reading for all the details.

Strawberry's no stranger to the social scene. In addition to being one of NWN's top Second Life blogs (as chosen by our readers), she's arguably one of the most active voices in the Second Life community across various platforms including Facebook, Plurk, and Twitter. If anyone is fit to write about the different social networking options available to other SL users, it's her. She knows the ins and outs, and while it's important to remember that you don't need to use every platform available, this post can certainly help you pick out the best one to meet your own needs.

Now here's my own advice that I'll attach to the tail end of Strawberry's: Don't be an asshole. These days, social networking and SEO and personal brands and all that are everywhere, and for every individual that engages with them constructively there are 10 using them as a megaphone to blare noise out over a crowd. The whole purpose of a network is to increase interaction and connection between many people, and if you're only using them to send information without taking any in, you're not contributing much of use to that network. You're just broadcasting yourself, not engaging, and there are more than a few savvy folks in the audience who will be incredibly turned off by that. It feels hollow, self-serving, out-of-touch and, perhaps most important of all, it feels insincere.

As far as I'm concerned, social media at its best should not be a soapbox or a billboard. You're not sitting at the head of the table. You're one in a crowd of many, and if you want to be heard, you had better be willing to listen, too.

(Photo credit: Strawberry Singh)

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Merc]

The MySL network would be useful if it was reliable - but it's not. It's lagging, notifications about incoming messages are lost / never received, sent messages are not received by the other party, or, because of lagging, messages are very often become double or triple sent which looks lame. I use MySL, but I have had several awkward misunderstandings because of its mailbox part.