Successful social networking depends upon a number of factors, with your personality, values, and beliefs being some of the more highly relevant ones. Social media is social, and that means your personal values and beliefs will eventually be expressed, whether that is intentional or not. Knowing that most people are looking for agreement in social situations, there is an important question that many of us have considered. Exclusion tends to narrowly define a group, thereby giving it an identity that is congruent with all of its members. Photo Credit. MORE >>

During the past few years, social media has been an individual sport: A way to put out your shingle and start making a name for yourself. While groups, businesses and associations can all leverage the tools, there is often the feeling that social media has been meant to level the playing field rather than support traditional hierarchy. The Read & Trust network is a fantastic example of writers banding together to both help raise awareness for their individual work while building a business model. Social Media future of social media michael schechter networks MORE >>

Of the top 10 most trafficked social networking sites, LinkedIn is a bit of an anomaly. Its Compare that to the new social media darling, Pinterest.com. With numbers like these you can’t help but wonder how LinkedIn will compete for mindshare when interest-based social networks are cropping up everywhere and stealing bigger pieces of the consumer engagement pie? To date, LinkedIn has focused more attention on bringing users from Twitter, Facebook and Google+ deeper into its social network.  This is a guest post by Kevin Green. MORE >>

The launch of Geocities by Yahoo marked for some the beginning of a new revolution in the online media called social networking. Later, several other websites such as Classmates.com and Friendster contributed to the development of social networking to help reach our present day scenario, where we see the domination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. From an evolutionary standpoint and through historical data, there have been several milestones that have been reached that can help us formulate a true life cycle phenomenon in the social networking space. MORE >>

Having lived through the rise and fall of FriendFeed , the slow rise and then rapid quickening of Twitter , and the "not quite right for this world" debut and subsequent dismissal of Buzz , I practically feel like a grizzled old social networking veteran. As mentioned last week in my serious but slightly tongue in cheek guide to " giving good social ", you should both "Prove You're a Human" while also "Learning the Community" (points 6 and 7 for those keeping track). am VP of Marketing at my6sense. Did Somebody Ask for Baby Photos? Here You Go. We're here!" Oh No! MORE >>