You got an invite to Hi5. You got an invite to Plaxo. You got an invite to Friendster! A friend wants you to follow her on Twitter. You coworker tells you to check out her MySpace. Your wife put your kids’ pics on FaceBook. An old friend is on eConozco, and another just got on TeeBeeDee.

“I don’t have that many hours in a day!,” you say.

How many do you join? How many do you actively participate in? You hate commitment! And you were never much of a mingler at parties! What to do, what to do?

Relax.

Social Networks are a fad.

They are. There, I’ve said it. Sorry to burst your bubble, guys.

Look, don’t get me wrong. Social Networks are great. They let you stay in touch with friends and family. They create fun activities for us to do. They help us get a job, find a lover, get a date, meet someone coming to town, and more.

Then, how come I’m so exhausted, you ask? Check this out:

See? You’re not the only one going nuts. It’s just too much! I mean, getting a sheep thrown at you on FaceBook may be fun, but now you’re getting virtual gardenias from your friend the tree-hugger, political jokes from the Nader fan, constant notices about which movie your brother-in-law wants to see, and twits upon twits telling you that your former roommate is at a concert, thinks NIN rocks, driving to the beach and getting lucky, that dog.

Meanwhile, here you are trying to quickly read your email before going to bed, won’t these people just leave you be? (And secretly you wonder, “am I being antisocial?”) (And secretly you ponder, “how come my friends have such interesting lives and I’m bed, watching some leggy transexual sing opera on ‘America’s Got Talent’?

The naked truth about Social Networks

First of all, let’s understand what brought the phenomenon to us in the first place.

Late Nineties: Web pages

Once upon a time, some of us coded html. We slapped together things called web pages. When there was a business need, these pages would be professional, branded, and would assemble into a cohesite Web site. When the need was more informal, it was “anything goes.” And a thousand free hosting services invited us to put our content on their pages (as long as we don’t mind the ads that is.) Remember Geocities?

Still, this required coding skills - so many of us felt left out of the party - and your nephew the geek was not always around to update your pictures or add another rotating exclamation point.

Have no fear, blogs are here

With the advent of blogging, the average person could now create a blog and start blabbing about their life, ranting about their views or talking to… well, to anyone who would listen. And, was anyone listening? In many cases, not so much. In a blogosphere numbering in the millions, it became harder and harder to get one’s voice heard!

Newsgroups, Forums, Yahoo Groups and Google Groups

Some people were already doing social media a LOOOONG time ago.  A friend of mine was using Newsgroups before I knew what “email” meant. I have a friend in Argentina who, when asked about his excellent English and amazing grasp of U.S. pop culture, smugly replied “online gaming forums.” I belonged to over 100 Yahoo Groups back in 1999.

These groupings enabled people to connect remotely with those whose interests were similar to theirs, share tips and ideas, argue, debate and learn.

Still, keep in mind that many, many people were able to go on their daily lives without  blogging about them, without discussing things in a Yahoo Group and without posting in a forum.

Web 2.0

A collection of technologies brought us the next leap forward. In 2003, MySpace came on the scene, offering kids, teens and less than web-savvy adults an opportunity to stake their claim in cyberspace, and connect with other MySpace users. This was mega-blogging, bloggretation, an exploding blog-blob. The main difference from a blog is that you pretty much had guaranteed readership through congregation.

FaceBook came on the scene in 2006, aimed first at College students and eventually opening its doors to non-students everywhere (though it still retains a ‘college campus atmosphere.’)

But, just like bullet-time in the Matrix, the technology was copied, and soon we saw similar stuff everywhere. Today, there’s a new Network trying to gain new users every day.

All about niches

To carve themselves a name on the wall of social media, wannabe Social Networks competing with FaceBook and MySpace claim a specific niche. Kayakers, travelers, cat-lovers, you name it. TeeBeeDee is especially geared at those over forty, for example.

Now that you have a bit of context, let’s try and figure out how to use Social Media effectively.

Tips for using Social Media effectively:

1. Know who you are
Do a little self-reflection. Understand your own habits, patterns, hobbies and social needs. Based on that, develop a Social Media vision for yourself, which will guide your Social Media strategy. For example, are you looking to land a job? Or are you facing three more years of college and your main goal is to be popular on campus?

2. Know what Networks are out there
Before joining a bunch of networks willy-nilly, get familiar with what’s out there and join based on your likes and dislikes, your age group, geographic location and the life stage you’re living.

Are you a College student? Then of course you’re likely to be on FaceBook - but you might also consider Uloop and RateMyProfessor. A professional looking to network, looking for a job or negotiating your future career jumps? Try LinkedIn and Xing - and of course Monster (while not really a Social Networking site, its new functionality really help potential employers connect with would-be hires.)

You can use age as a criteria: Just turned 40? Try TeeBeeDee. Over fifty? Try Eons.

You can go Geographic: Bebo is huge in the U.K, Orkut in Brazil and India.

Use your interests as a compass: If you’re an environmentalist, then you might like BeGreen or GreenVoice. Like movies? Try Flixster, or the user forums at Rotten Tomatoes.

How about your career path as a guide? There are Social Networks for lawyers, interior designers and all kind of occupations. I’m sure you could find a Social Network for morticians if you looked hard enough!

Another good approach would be to select your hangout based on what you want to get done. ReadItSwapIt and PaperbackSwap are great for trading and swapping used books. A traveler on a shoe-string budget might consider Couchsurfing; to hit the nightlife in your city, you’d better get Going.

Not to mention other great stuff you might just stumble upon.

Here’s a very inclusive list of Social Networks I found at Mashable.

3. Skip redundancies

One key point to consider: Are you trying to make new friends, or stay in touch with existing ones? Xanga and Wasabi are probably great places to participate in groups and develop online contacts, but you need not send invites to all the friends and family members already in touch with you through FaceBook. If you’re already connected to a business acquaintance through LinkedIn and you’re already sent them a Xing invite, they might find your Plaxo overture a tad over-reaching.

4. Etiquete and common sense

As you migrate your social life into online Networks, you should bring with you the same set of manners, common sense and etiquete you’ve been using in email, IM, forums and offline, at parties, phone calls and business parties.

Don’t throw a sheep at an acquaintance on FaceBook just because you can! Your sister might find it funny, but your brother in law might raise an eyebrow at a super-poke from you.

I plan to write a whole separate post on LinkedIn etiquete - but suffice it to say that spitting out invites at strangers willy-nilly will likely get your account frozen.

5. Mold your Social Networks to match your life - not the other way around.

Do what you would normally do! Just, you know, online.

If you would normally get together with your brother and his girlfriend once every two weeks for dinner and you have not been able to do so since he moved to Vancouver, you can use Skype, FaceBook and Twitter to keep the wanted level of closeness.

Would you normally act goofy, play scrabble and discuss movies with your Aunt Millie? Then get her on FaceBook and get the right applications (Super-poke, Scramble, the Flixster app) and let the fun begin.

Again, I’ll write a separate post on FaceBook do’s and don’t’s - but be attentive as you sign up for FaceBook applications, you don’t want your friends to get annoyingly frequent spurious updates for every time you changed something in your profile, joined or left a group, etc.

6. You don’t have to do it all!

It’s perfectly ok to draw the line. And realize that all your friends and acquaintances are being barraged with Social Networking choices. If you’re already really active in one network and a friend is just getting started, encourage her to connect with you on your preferred newtwork. In fact…

7. Evangelize your choices

Send a mass email to all your friends inviting a discussion on this. Tell them the networks you belong to and why, and seek a concensus. That way you don’t have to join 20 of them, maybe just 5 or 6.

And most important of all…

8. Don’t drop your offline Social Networking!

Don’t let your new online connectivity to interfere with the high-touch, altogether warmer and more human approach to Social Networking - the way our granpa and grandma used to do it! Throw a party, hug a friend, send a letter (remember those?) or a postcard. Go biking with your friends, take your family to the park for a picnic. Call your mother.

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