Web 2.0 is the power to connect with other people: to interact, to build friendships. There are so many potential connections that you can make in the world and social media facilitates these relationships. (By the way, you can read more about the advantages of social networking in this post.)
When you create a website or a blog you want to make it easy for people to find you in in Cyberspace.


Make It Easy for Your Readers to Find You

That’s where social media icons come in. If you make these icons clickable, the readers of your blog can easily find you on social networking sites and this will give you more chances of them interacting with you. I strongly recommend placing these icons at the top of your site near a picture of you like I did on my blog.
Of course you want those icons to blend in with the theme of your blog or website. My blog is a bit more feminine so I chose the hearts icons to match it .

Combine Your Social Media Icons with the Rest of the Design

A great example of this is a blog that I ran across a few months ago: Nicholas Cardot’s SiteSketch101. Nick writes about how to blog with power and influence. When I got there, I was really impressed with the design. He uses all the right colors to catch the eye and the elements blend in really well. His blog is a great example of what you should do when designing your blog or website.

Choose Your Style

Each person has their unique personality and way of doing things. That’s why I compiled a list of all kinds of different icons so that you can look over them and see which one fits your particular style.

I hope one of the icon sets listed above will be what you were looking for your website or blog. If would like to stay in contact with me and updated on more great resources for your blog just fill in the form below and sign up for our newsletter .

All the best ♥,

Eren Mckay

You may also like: • Resize images: how to optimize a jpeg image for your blog posts. • Follow us on twitter buttons for free • Why should people use online social networks? • Why is Twitter so popular?

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11 Free Social Media Icon Sets for Websites or Blogs is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

Comodo has several awesome features in protecting your computer. The firewall is totally free and I highly recommend using it. If you would like to know more reasons why I really like Comodo you can read this post here.
If you already have decided that Comodo is the firewall for you to install on your hard drive, then the following step by step tutorial complete with screenshots will help you in the installation.

Installing the Comodo Firewall

First of all : Go to this link and click the Download button. (The link opens in a new window so that you don’t lose your place here.) A new window will pop up like the one below. Click Save File.

Next, find the folder on your hard drive where you will save this software. Click Save. (I personally save all of my software programs in one place making it easier to find later. )

The software will begin to download giving you a screen like this:

Once it has downloaded, a window will come up. Click the Next button.

The next screen is the user license agreement which you should read and then check the box where it says you have read and agree to the terms of service. Click Next once again.

It will then show you in which folder you are saving the software. Click Next.

Now it gives you the option of receiving email updates from Comodo. I didn’t subscribe but that’s a personal choice. So it’s up to you if you want to enter your email address or not. It’s not obligatory. Click Next.

This next window gives you the option of installing just the Firewall or also using their anti virus program. It’s not a good idea to have lots of anti virus softwares on your computer as they will start to clash with each other. I only installed the Firewall because I have a full antivirus already working on my computer. You choose the option that fits your personal situation. Click Next.

In this window I chose: Firewall with Optimum Proactive Defense since this gives a certain amount of security without getting in my the way of my daily browsing. Click Next .

Now it gives you the option of joining the Comodo Threatcast Community. Choose whether you want to or not and click Next.

Now it asks you if you want to use their DNS server. I chose not to. Click Next.

The next window will ask you if you want to use Hopsurf.com or Ask.com as your homepage. Since I don’t, I didn’t select any of their options. Click Next after you decide.

Finally (LOL) you can click the Install button- woohoo!

A window like this one will show you that it’s installing it.

Now it asks you to restart your system so that Comodo can properly take effect. Save any files you are working on and then click Yes.

A window will pop up asking you if you want it available for other networks. If you have other computers in your system then check the box that says you want it to be fully accessible to other PCs in the network. And then click OK.
There will be lots of windows asking you if you allow certain systems to work. Simply click allow to all of the softwares that you already know run on your computer.

I hope this tutorial on how to install a firewall has helped you out. You might also enjoy reading how to disable a firewall and why you need one. For more great resources in your blogging journey don’t goregt to sign up to the Embracing Blogging Newsletter by clicking this link and filling in the form.


You might also enjoy the following articles:

Resize Images for Your Blog Posts

Follow us on twitter buttons for free

How to Install the Free Comodo Firewall is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

For those of us who work online, one of the most important and basic tools we should have on our computers is a firewall.
One virus attack can destroy your entire hard drive in minutes. And that, my friends, is scary. Of course you should always back up your hard drive so that you don’t lose any of your work. But as my grandma used to say:“Prevention is always the best medicine.”


So in addition to backing up your hard drive, I recommend having a firewall. As with all things that protect us, they can also slow down our daily lives and be a major pain in the … foot .
(*By the way the links on this page open up in a new window so that you don’t lose your place)

For example I used to use a really great free firewall that pctools has. The only problem was that every time I would try to open my FTP client (Filezilla) and try to upload images or anything to my site it just wouldn’t allow me to. I wanted to easily deactivate it while I was working on my site and then reactivate it once I was done.
I actually didn’t find a way around this problem. So I ended up uninstalling the PCTools firewall even though it’s so good.
I admit that for a while there I didn’t even install another firewall leaving myself (*I mean my computer ) very open to virus attacks.

But then my friend Robert Nelson told me about the firewall he uses called Comodo. So I decided to give it a shot and installed it. I really liked the fact that you can easily deactivate it when you are using your FTP client. And also it’s not constantly asking for authorization every 2 seconds like the PCtools one ( *that is unless you browse on paranoid mode)
A virus attack can happen just by inadvertently clicking on a malware link when you’re browsing. So if you don’t have a firewall installed on your computer yet, I strongly recommend getting Comodo (which is totally free).
If you already have Comodo installed and simply want to know how to deactivate it when you’re working on your site, here’s what you do:

ღ Deactivating Your Firewall ღ

In your tray (bottom right) you will find a gray button that is the firewall symbol. If you scroll your mouse over it you will see the words Comodo Firewall come up:

If you don’t see it simply go to your desktop and click on the Comodo Firewall icon. (*Always keep a shortcut there on your desktop for easy access.)

If you double click that icon the following window will come up:

By simply closing that window this will activate the firewall into putting the icon into your tray.
Now you can right click the Comodo Firewall button and new window will open up. You will need to select the sandbox security level and disable. Of course when you want to reactivate you simple select once again and enable it.

For the defense security level I always browse on safe mode but if you’re really scared you can always browse in paranoid mode . Simple click deactivate while working on your site.

Then you will disable it in the firewall security level too. There’s only those 3 levels to disable and then enable once again.

By the way if you haven’t signed up for the Free Embracing Blogging Newsletter just click here and fill in the form.
What about you? Do you use Comodo? Which firewall have you used which you recommend? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
And if you don’t yet have Comodo, you will want to read this step by step tutorial on how to install the free Comodo firewall.


You may also like to read:

Resize images: how to optimize a jpeg image for your blog posts.


Why should people use online social networks?


Follow us on twitter buttons for free

Why You Need a Firewall and How to Disable It Temporarily is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

If you’re like me, you love to make things pretty. And while Twitter is an awesome place to chat with each other, I really miss all the bells and whistles that other chats give us like the smileys and color options . Decorating our conversation is half the fun! (hee hee)
So the solution to this is finding the absolute cutest art that we can actually tweet. I went around hunting and decided to put them all into one post.

That way when you want to make someone smile, laugh or if you just want to express yourself in a more artistic way, you can pick and choose from these symbols. They’re in alphabetical order to make it easier for you.
Some of them can be made with your keyboard while others you’ll need to copy and paste into your tweets.
Enjoy → and if you like this post please tweet it so others can know about it and bookmark it so you can easily come back . If you like this kind of resource, you’ll want to subscribe to the Embracing Blogging newsletter by clicking on this link and filling in the form.

You might also enjoy the following:

Why should we use online social networking?

How can we make friends online?

Free Twitter buttons and icons for your blog

Cool List of Alt Codes and Text Decorations for Twitter & Facebook is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

Dr. Pic is an online image editor that I personally love to use just because it’s so easy and fast. There are many other image editing tools.
I personally have image editing software on my desktop such as Gimp (free) and Photoshop (paid). But the fact is that they have so many functions that it makes it a bit more time consuming to perform simple tasks. Online image resizers are just simpler .

If you have a blog or website you’ll probably need to make the size of the image smaller so that it visually fits better into the blog post. You’ll also need to optimize images so that your page loads faster. If you have heavy pages this will slow down your site speed which might even ultimately affect your search engine rankings. Here’s an article on Google’s blog that you can read more about this topic.

I’ve tried to make this step by step tutorial for resizing an image as simple as possible to understand.
First of all go to Dr. Pic. (← This link will open up in a new window.)
When you get to Dr. Pic , you’ll see this ↓.

At the top left you will see the button that says Load a picture. Click that button and a new window will open up. Your screen should look something like the picture below. Click the button that says Browse. (My button says “procurar” because my browser is in portuguese by default.)

After you click Browse, go to the folder where you saved your image that you want to upload to resize and double click it. That will select the image. Then you click open and then on Load Picture.

That will upload the image like it did my image right here:

You then click the Resize button on the left hand side and the resize box will open up like in the image below ↓:

Now you’re going to select the new size of your image. You can do so by selecting the blue arrow with the drop down menu and choosing the pixel size. Uncheck the Lock Aspect Ratio so that it will make the exact width and height that you determine. In this case, I chose to change my height size from 290 pixels to 250 pixels and maintain my width size at 960 pixels. You can also resize using percentages. I personally prefer using pixels though.

Side Note : If you use Firefox to browse the internet, a great tool for measuring pixel size and having a better notion of the size of the image is Measure It. It’s an on screen ruler and I strongly recommend using this as it helps me daily when I’m resizing my images.

After you have determined the exact size that you want to resize to, click the word Apply and it will resize it for you.
Here’s an image to show you this step:

The next step is to save your image. On the left hand side you will find a link where it says Save to Disk as in the image below :

A new window will open up and you simply click the Save button:

After you click Save, a new window will open up asking you where you want to save the image to. Find the folder on your computer in which you want to save the image to and click Save.

After this step a new window will open up and ask you if you want to open the folder. I personally like this step because I go into the folder and rename the image whatever makes the most sense to me.

I hope this tutorial has helped you out. Once you resize a few images you’ll get faster and faster at it. If you like this article you’ll want to subscribe to the Embracing Blogging newsletter by clicking on this link and filling in the form.
And if you have any ideas or suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comment section below.
Blessings to you ♥,
Eren Mckay


You might also enjoy the following articles:

Follow us on twitter buttons for free

How to disable a Firewall temporarily and why you need one

How to install the free Comodo firewall.

Resize Images for Your Blog Posts is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

I’ve spent some time creating some Twitter buttons for you to place on your blog, website or social network. I hope you like them .
You’re going to have to add some html code to the button so that people can click it and go to your Twitter account.
I also did a little tutorial for you to know how to download these images to your computer so that you can then upload them to your own blog or wherever else on the web.

Please don’t use them from my url as it will load my bandwidth costs. When you scroll down you’ll see that there are various different colors. I’ll be creating more and adding them to this page as I do so.

1- Right mouse click on top of the image. A new window will pop up like the one in the image below.

2- Select the image where it says Save Image As.

Another window will pop up for you to choose which folder you want to put the image in. Simply select the folder of your choice and click save.

If you like these images don’t forget to leave me a comment and let me know ( I love hearing from you ). This blog is do follow and has comment luv which means you get a link to your latest post when you comment.
Also if you’re not yet subscribed to the Embracing Blogging feed you may add it to your reader by clicking here.

Jpeg Image	Jpeg Image
Png Image	Jpeg Image
Png Image	Jpeg Image
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Png Image	Jpeg Image
Png Image	Jpeg Image

You might also enjoy the following:

Why is Twitter so popular?

Why should we use online social networking?

How can we make friends online?

Follow us on twitter buttons for free is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

The internet has revolutionized people’s everyday lives.
We now have access to a vast amount of information that simply was not easily available before.
For me personally, the absolute best part of the internet is the great opportunity that we have to make friends with people from all over the world. Thousands of miles apart, different cultures and customs are not impediments to making and maintaining friendships nowadays.



What does this have to do with your life?
Well simply put, this means that if you have a computer and an internet connection, no matter how isolated you may be, you can connect with others. Many factors end up isolating people in life. For example: you may not be able to get out of the home because of illness, taking care of elderly parents, caring for young kids, living far out in the country, etc.

Even if you’re not isolated, you can gain so much from making friends online.
You can learn new things and see life from a different perspective. Another motivating factor may be that you don’t connect emotionally with the people that you know locally. Making online friends is a huge freedom. There is no need for you to feel lonely or isolated wherever you may be.

Of course there are bad people online. Just as in the offline world you will find “bad apples” online too. But the good news is that there are great people out there. We shouldn’t lose the opportunity to make friends just because we’re scared of the bad ones.

Friends fulfill us in a special way.
Everyone needs to feel appreciated and loved and somehow connected to other people. I have made some fantastic friends online.
This may sound weird to some people but to me a real friend is more valuable than a big load of money in my bank account. A good friend truly is priceless.

Forums are great for connecting.
If you want to make friends online you can do so through various “avenues.” You can search for forums that are about topics that interest you. If you have common interests with others, it’s more likely to have a connection to them. Just go to Google and type in the search box: forum “topic that interests you”. Replace the words “topic that interests you” for whatever you’re into. It may be antiques, computer games, parenting, cooking, etc. For example I like web design so if I wanted to find people to connect with and talk about that topic I would type in there: forum “web design”.

Ning Communities
Another place that you can find communities that share an interest are Ning communities.You can search for niche communities by going to this link and typing in the words that interest you. There are loads of Ning groups out there about lots of topics imaginable.

Talking through Skype
Once you have established a certain connection through a Ning or forum community you can take the next step in that friendship and add that contact in Skype. Now you’re taking that friendship to another level. It’s just like talking on the phone. It’s so cool! (Skype is free software what you can install on your computer and lets you talk to everyone in the world for free. If you don’t already have it you can download it from this link . ) I can honestly tell you that I have made some of my best friends online through Skype. I’m a total fan.

Tweeting in Twitterville

In order to make online friends you need to go to where they are. Where is everyone nowadays? They’re on Twitter. So yes my friend, you definitely should get a Twitter account if you want to make friends online. By the way, I’m an official twitterholic LOL.
In my opinion, Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread- . Seriously though, Twitter is a great way to connect with people.

Let me tell you why I absolutely l♥ve to tweet.
Twitter is like a giant chat room – only it’s so much better. You can send public or private messages to people. There aren’t thousands of functions to it so once you get the hang of Twitter, it’s very easy to use.
The nature of Twitter is laid back which means you can talk about some personal information there too. You decide how personal you want to get though (Just remember that this is public- anyone can see your tweets unless you make them private.)
If you want to say something quickly to someone you don’t have to send them a long drawn out email. If they’re an avid user of Twitter they’ll end up seeing it probably within 24 hours (sometimes minutes ). A simple tweet makes it so much easier to communicate.

Let me show you a real live conversation that has made my friendship grow with an awesome blogger by using Twitter:

The other day, I was taking some time off from working and decided to go read some really cool blogs that I always read. As usual, I went to WChingYa’s Social Media Blog. She always has some really great articles that are helpful to any blogger. She wrote a post about sharing selective tweets through Facebook and I commented on it. I told her that I would stumble, delicious and tweet the post because it was so good. Here’s the comment that I left:

Right after I left her my comment, my kids started to fight about something and ask me for help. I completely forgot what I was doing on the computer. I closed my browser and went to tend to the boys.
9 hours later I was going through my Word document where I save all of my comments.
(Side note: Yes I save all of my comments simply because there have been many times when the comment gets lost and that is very frustrating to me.)

So while I was scanning through I noticed that I had told her that I would stumble, delicious, and tweet her post.
But it had been 9 hours since I had told her that.
Oh my! Now what? Would she think that I was lying? What was she going to think of me? So I immediately opened up Twitter and tweeted her post:

Then I stumbled and delicioused it. But I was feeling really bad because I didn’t want her to think that I’m a liar (I’m not).
So what did I decide to do? I decided to tweetagize. Yeah, that’s Twitterese for apologize on Twitter- LOL.
So I tweeted her and tried to explain in 140 characters what had happened. Here’s the tweet:

Well guess what? Her response was just awesome. She said that there was no need to apologize! Isn’t that just sweet of her? She is a total ♥ tweetheart ♥.
Here’s her tweet:

I explained that I have A.D.D. ( Attention Deficit Disorder) and that it hadn’t been on purpose. It’s at times like these that I’m really glad that I keep things organized and structured.

After this we really have started to tweet each other. She friended me and sent me a message on Facebook.
This whole episode showed me how apologizing can be the best thing! We have created a closer connection. I consider her my friend. I just absolutely love making friends with cool peeps like her!
By the way, you should definitely follow her on twitter @wchingya and on her page on facebook .
As you can see Twitter made it so fast and easy to communicate with her.

Making friends online is not hard.
So if you want to build friendships, my advice to you is to get yourself out there. Start posting on forums, tweeting, skyping and simply connecting with others.
Don’t be afraid to say you’re sorry when you mess up. Be yourself- those who like you will and those who don’t, won’t (and that’s okay). Be sincere. Care about others. You’ll be making great friends in no time!
What about you?
What are your thoughts and experiences with online friendships?
Please share in the comment section below .


Don’t forget to subscribe to the Embracing Blogging Feed by clicking the following pie image:

You may also like to read:

Why should people use online social networks?

Why is Twitter so popular?

How to develop friendships- poetry on friendship like a sister

Ways to meet and make new friends online is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

This is a guest blog post by Dan Nappi from The Blog About Everything.
Dan is an experienced blogger and loves to integrate social media practices into business.
You can follow him on Twitter @DannyinTampa


What’s the power of social of networking?
Have you heard the expression “power to the people”? Well that’s where in lies the power of social networking : in the people. I’ve made many great friends online and learned so much from them. I never would have made these friendships had it not been for Twitter and Facebook. Online social networking has given me this freedom.


Tweetups

Recently I attended my first “tweetup”. A tweetup is a social gathering where you get the opportunity to meet fellow tweeps (people who use twitter) in real life that are in your area. The great thing about meeting people from social networking for the first time
is that it already feels like you know that person just from the conversations that you’ve had online. Twitter in particular will give you a real idea of who that person is and what they’re feeling throughout the day.

The days of being tied down are gone.

Before the days of online social networking you typically had to rely mostly in networking within your local community. This is the great advantage with networking on the internet: you’re not confined to meeting others just inside your geographical area. You’re able to make contacts from all over the globe and learn from some of the smartest people in the world.

Have you ever heard the saying that in order to be successful you need to surround yourself around with successful people? Well with Twitter you can learn a whole lot from many successful people in any given niche.

Another Great Advantage to Social Media

Social media provides a platform which allows you to show people who you are and what you do. You can’t fake social media. People will know what you’re all about. If you come across in a way that people don’t like, you run the risk of ruining your reputation and the potential to lose business. People tend to buy from people they know, like, and trust so if you rub them the wrong way, you’re defying your own business and livelihood.

Of course this only applies if you’re using social media for marketing purposes. If you’re not in business and use social media just as a form of entertainment you may not care so much about reputation management.

Make your Twitter experience a better one.

I’ve noticed that some people give up Twitter because they’re not sure what to do. I recommend installing Tweetdeck which will make your “tweeting” experience less confusing. You can choose to follow specific groups of people or even certain words that interest you. Don’t give up on Twitter before you’ve given it a fair chance .

Remember that it’s all about the people.

Social networking can be many things to different people. What it comes down to is you should be yourself foremost, be willing to help others and share valuable information.
It’s ok to tweet about your business but my advice would be to do it sparingly. Once people make a connection with you, they’re going to be more than happy to refer business your way. Always remember that in social networking the power is in the people.
What about you? Have you made any great friendships online? Please share in the comment section below.


Dan Nappi is a real estate agent who specializes in new homes for sale in Tampa Bay Florida.His company also has realtors for property management in Tampa Bay Florida.

Dan also invites other guest bloggers who enjoy writing to submit their guest posts.

You may also enjoy reading :

Is social networking good or bad and why should you blog?


Internet addiction jokes: Top 13 clues that you’re addicted to the internet


Follow us on Twitter images for free .


Don’t forget to subscribe to the Embracing Blogging Feed by clicking the following pie image :

Why is Twitter so Popular? Why should we Tweet, use Facebook and Other Social Media? is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

Top 13 Clues that You’re Addicted to the Internet:




1- Your husband (or wife) has to send you an email message when he (she) wants to say something to you.
You also start to think that emailing information substitutes actually having to say things in person.





2- You tell your family members that you would be able to talk to them a lot more if they would just get on Skype (that way you could talk to them while typing, LOL ).




3- You honestly want to make a few video tutorials about Skype when your family members look at you with a blank stare on their face and ask you: “What in the world is Skype?!?”


4- You dread going to the mall because your laptop decided to take a vacation and stop working .





5- You go to Wordtracker and start to type in weird keywords after reading Nicole Dean’s niches that she never thought of post.






6- Your first idea of doomsday is turning on the computer and finding the blue screen of death.


7- Your second idea of doomsday is waking up and discovering that your website has just been hacked.




8- Your idea of fun family time is showing the kids your latest delicious bookmarks.



9- You laugh for days or even months after reading Lynn Terry’s awesome satire against website content thieves. You wish there was some kind of award for such clever and hilarious posts like that.


10- If for some weird reason you actually have to spend days without a computer, you start to experience withdrawal symptoms which may include (but aren’t restricted to):

• insomnia
• headaches
• nervousness
• irritability
• just sitting and looking at a wall and wondering what you’re supposed to do next.

11- Your mom has the idea of going to a farm for 3 days and tells you that you can’t take the computer with you.
You then embark on a two hour explanation of why 3 days without a computer is your idea of torture.


12- You think these work at home desks are actually great ideas


13- You have at least 10 of these 15 signs that tells you’re a web geek.


And in case you’re wondering how I came up with this list, let’s just say personal experience is great inspiration for writing


What about you? What are some of your clues for figuring out if you’re addicted to the internet? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.


You may also enjoy reading :

Is social networking good or bad and why should you blog?


Why Twitter? Why is it so popular and why should we use Facebook?


How to disable a firewall temporarily and why you need one.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Embracing Blogging Feed by clicking the following pie image :

Internet and computer addiction jokes -Top 13 Clues that You’re Addicted is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com

There are literally thousands of social networks on the internet. Before we go into the explanation of why online networking is important for you personally and professionally, I want to list a few of the most popular social networks that are online today.

Of course this is not an exhaustive list. It’s just a few of the basic ones:

Microblogging Platform: Twitter	Video Sharing: YouTube
Social Networking: MySpace	Social Networking: Facebook
Social Bookmarking: Delicious	Social Bookmarking: Stumbleupon

You can also find thousands of “niched” social networks by searching for individual ones on Ning.


Another great tool for social networking is using voip services which allow you to call and talk to people all over the world for free. Having conversations is one of the fastest ways to establish relationships with people online.

There are several services but my favorite service is Skype. You can download Skype for free to your computer. Anyone in the world who has an internet connection and Skype installed on their computer will be able to talk to you (free of charge).

Grab Your Name on these Social Networks

If you don’t have an account on the places listed above, I strongly suggest that you go sign up with your first and last name (or your first two names) in each one of them. Even if you’re not going to start using them all right away, it’s always a good idea to grab your name so that no one else gets it. (Some people will grab others’ names just so they can “squat” on it and sometimes even impersonate others.) So if you don’t yet have your name on them you should do so A.S.A.P.

Brand Yourself and Be “Findable”

Another reason for you to use the same name everywhere is so that you may brand yourself.

For example; my username on all of these different social networks is Eren Mckay. By having my username be the same across all online networks, it makes it easier for people to remember and find me. This is why it’s so important not to change your username in each place as it just makes branding and “findability” more difficult. Make it simple for people to find you.

Why is it that people use social networks? What kind of mindset should we have when social networking?

The true goal of social networking is to establish relationships with people. Unfortunately not everyone has this mindset when they go onto social media sites. There are those who look at the people there as dollar bills. Their sole purpose is to see “how much money they can make” off of others. This kind of mindset is a Taker – User mentality. If money is at the forefront of anyone’s thinking when social networking then their mindset is just plain wrong. Social networking is not a means of personal gain without actually caring about others.

The Giver Mentality

The right mindset is to help others while being open to learn and grow in the process. Being selfish may even work for a short amount of time but not in the long run.


There are even those who attempt to act like they care but in reality they’re just faking it. Eventually their masks fall off.
There’s a saying that goes something like this: “People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care”. Having the “people first” mentality will help you go much further personally and professionally.
When networking we should be asking ourselves: How can I be of service to others? How can I help people get to where they need to go? The financial gains are a natural consequence of having the right intent when networking, but should never be the primary goal.


Advantages of Social Networking

Other than forming relationships with people, one of the biggest advantages of social networking is learning. There are many things that we would otherwise not even know existed if we didn’t network with others. There’s so much to learn that can help make our lives easier or better. When we network we end up being warned about things that could hurt us and also discovering helpful tips. As good networkers, we should always freely share information that we find useful. By communicating our experiences with each other we can go so much further in our knowledge base.


And Example of a Great Networker

For example Kristi from Kikolani.com is an excellent example of someone who is great at social networking. Every Friday she writes a post called Fetching Friday Resources where she links to other blog posts that she has read and found useful. I thoroughly enjoy her Fetching Friday posts. I’ve found some golden nuggets of information through her blog and her tweets.


So What’s the Next Step?

Now that we’ve covered the basics and the advantages of social networking, let’s talk about how to maintain relationships with the people that we meet on social media sites.

One of the things that you should keep “top of mind” is that it’s always a great idea to bring people back to your blog. If they come to your blog and like what you write, they might subscribe to read your blog through an RSS feed or even sign up to your mailing list. This is a sure way to maintain long lasting relationships.
I created a graphic to make understanding this principle very simple:

Be a Blogger Who Gives Back to the Community

Whatever your niche may be, as a blogger you want to always provide the best resources for your readers. One of the reasons blogging is so great is the the interaction between readers and the blogger.
The readers can leave their valuable insights or ideas in the comment section.

Unfortunately, by default Wordpress has the commenters’ link to be no follow. The fact that it’s no follow will prevent any link juice from passing on. It may be that your readers also have websites or blogs and if so, you will be helping your commenters by installing the do follow plugin. This will allow the link to their website get some juice for ranking purposes in the search engines.
If you are a blogger who really cares about other bloggers then I strongly suggest you turn your comment section into do follow.


Spread the Love Through Linking

There’s a community of cool bloggers out there who not only reward their commenters with a do follow link but also have a plugin installed called commentluv which pulls the commenters’ latest blog post and links to it with their title.

The commentluv plugin in conjunction with the do follow plugin will actually help your commenters’ webpage get ranked in the search engines for their keywords. This is the ultimate in social networking while blogging. You’re having a conversation with people and also helping them get ranked for their keyword phrases.


Bloggers with the Right Mindset

Bloggers who link to other bloggers have the right mindset when it comes to social networking. Sire is one of these bloggers. He wrote a really smart blogging poem and linked to fellow bloggers.

Another cool blogger is John Sullivan who wrote a post about having a do follow comment backlinks blast. He even went so far as to put the commenters’ comments in a new post and gave it the title of: Do you really read your comments? How awesome is that?

I’m happy to say that I’m a part of this community of bloggers who give back. This blog is and will always be do follow. I also have the commentluv plugin installed which will give you a link to your latest blog post with your title keywords in it. I think these two plugins are awesome because they enable you to help others while blogging. So don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed so that you can see every time I add a new blog post.

I hope this post has helped clarify why social networking is important and how to incorporate it into your blogging journey.
What about you? What are your experiences and ideas about social networking? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below .

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Is social networking good or bad & why blog ? is a post from: EmbracingBlogging.com