If you’re anything like me you’re probably a bit wary of the many social networking sites that have proliferated over the last few years.  I’m not one of those people that sees a ‘Sign Up’ button and feels compelled to click, nor am I someone who feels the need to share the last thing I ate, the last time I showered or the colour of my underwear with random web-strangers.  That being said, social networking is a good way to find new websites and to explore your hobbies or interests in greater depth, and I have seen myself that it is also an effective method for publicizing your own website.  The trick is to find the right balance between over-indulgence in the social networking empire and complete abstinence from the networks altogether.

I remember saying to a friend once that I thought the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter were a lazy way of blogging without having to actually form sentences or paragraphs.  The information contained in your profiles was essentially the same as what could be garnered from a well-written personal blog, but the profile did all the work for you - all you had to do was fill in the blanks.  I can understand why some people have such a phobia of social networking sites, because although they are intended to concentrate as much personal information as possible into a fun and colourful format, they can actually end up being quite impersonal.  People don’t have to communicate with you to find out what your favourite movie is or what you got up to on the weekend, they simply have to read your profile - and often without you even knowing that they’ve done so.  Call it laziness, call it a decline in social politeness, call it stalking - whatever your choice, social networking isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be.  So why bother at all?

- Recommendations

Sites like Last.fm and Shelfari are built upon the premise of a user loading or listing their favourite books or the music they listen to.  This attracts hundreds upon thousands of social-networking-junkies who get a thrill from revealing the minutiae of their lives to complete strangers.  It also attracts people like me, who like loading a comprehensive list of their books or music so that an equally comprehensive list of recommendations can be given in return.  Without Last.fm I wouldn’t have discovered The Doves or The Bees until they made it big in Australia (which took a good few years).  Without my Amazon.co.uk recommendations I wouldn’t have read Freakonomics or Death in the Pot.  Even StumbleUpon has it’s uses - allowing you to list your favourite topics and being sent to pages relevant to the subject selected.  I have found many an interesting fashion- or history-related site in this manner.

- Keeping in touch with loved ones (in real life)

I’m not suggesting that there is anything wrong with sharing your life with complete strangers, but often we bloggers forget that it’s nice to share with your ‘real life’ loved ones as well.  This, as far as I’m concerned, is the only use for Facebook and to a lesser extent Flickr.  Having friends and family scattered throughout two countries on opposite sides of the globe means that it can be quite hard to keep track of what everyone is up to.  Facebook helps me stay up to date with all the engagements, new jobs, new cars, new houses, and the general well-being of all my loved ones.  Of course I could pick up the phone and give my friends or family a call - but when you’re calling from another country, you soon realise just how financially redundant (and time-zone impractical) this can be.  While I don’t really care what my sister’s best friend’s Facebook fish-tank looks like, or ‘What Video Game Character’ I would be, it is handy to have a program remind you of upcoming birthdays and special events.  Such is the nature of Facebook - you have to take the good information with the completely useless.

- Publicity

I’ll be the first to admit that part of having a blog (however small) is the vindication you feel when other people visit or comment on your site.  It’s like being picked first for a sports team or being asked to be a bridesmaid at your friend’s wedding - there’s a thrill in feeling wanted or, at the very least, being worthy of someone else’s consideration.  This is why so many social networking sites do so well - they trade on popularity, and on the fickleness of us human-beings wanting to be wanted.  Del.icio.us, Furl, StumbleUpon, Technorati, MyBlogLog, Digg, Reddit - they all trade on the popularity of particular pieces of information which are inextricably tied up with the people that submit or author them.  Many of the people that use these sorts of networks are desperate for acceptance and popularity.  Others are purely interested in the information that is provided.  If you’re like me, you’re a mixture of both - I find Digg, Reddit & co. interesting, but I also would love to have one of my articles or posts soar to the top of the rankings - and I think most bloggers would admit to feeling the same. So far as site uniques and rankings are concerned, I have had limited success with Reddit, some success with Technorati, and a great deal of success with StumbleUpon - but in my opinion, a lot of this is down to luck.  The time of day the submission of your article/post/website takes place, the amount of friends you have signed up to your profile updates, and the relevance of the topic to web trends and current events all act as determining factors.  If you have the good fortune and the network of friends required to do well, more power to you.  Personally I think of these websites as being more like a roll of the dice - sometimes you come up trumps.

So if you’re just starting out online - whether it’s creating a blog or website, or tentatively building up a profile - would I recommend you hop on the social-networking train along with every other attention-starved teenager and web-marketing guru?  I think my answer would be determined by your initial aims.  If you’re doing it because everyone else is, you’re probably not the sort of person who will have read to the bottom of this post.  If you’re genuinely interested in what these sites have to offer - whether they’re intended to help with product recommendations, contact with loved ones, or even the publicity of yourself or your website - then I certainly would suggest giving it a try.  It hasn’t done me any harm (yet), and I’ve managed to retain my cynicism without morphing into a social-networking junkie.