Lesson Five: Online Social Networks – A Review

Lesson Five Review: Next Installment of Learn About Social Media from Your Desk

Here’s a review of what we’ve covered to date about online social networks.

Social Networks: Lesson 5 in Learning About Social Media from Your Desk (Sunday, August 05, 2007)

Data on Social Networks (Wednesday, August 08, 2007)

ABCs of Facebook (Sunday, August 26, 2007)

Business Use of Online Social Networks (Wednesday, September 05, 2007)

Some Social Networks Are Bad for Your Reputation (Tuesday, September 11, 2007)

A Social Network Just for Communicators: MyRagan.com (Monday, September 17, 2007)

If you’re fairly new to this blog, let me explain that I started this series of “lessons” about tools of social media in January. I had planned on doing a different subject each month. But most subjects simply required more time. Below are links to the summarizing posts for each topic:

• January: Exploring Newsfeeds and Webfeeds (RSS)
• February-March: Getting Acquainted with the Blogs
• April-May: The World of Podcasting
• June-July: Using Delicious (I forgot to do a summary post for this topic)
• August-September: Online Social Networks (this post)

Headlines Must be Descriptive or You Lose Readers

My husband is stopping his subscription to Entrepreneur magazine. The main reason he gives is that when he reads the story headlines, he can’t tell what the story is going to be about. He’s a normal busy person. He doesn’t have time to solve mysteries just to read a magazine.

Here are some samples from the September 2007 issue:
• Tuned In
• Buh-Bye
• Come on, Defense!
• On the Rise
• All They Need
• So Long, Big Guys

Print magazines and newspapers can use images, photos and other design elements to draw readers into a story. But times have changed. In today’s world of RSS feeds and online news that link headlines to stories, cryptic and teaser headlines just don’t cut it.

I even find the puns in AdAge irritating. If I can’t tell in a few words what it’s going to be about, I’m gone.

You’d think Entrepreneur would have figured this out by now.

Here’s what the stories were about by the way:
• Tuned In: “alpha moms” (which I find is an offensive term)
• Buh-Bye: firing employees
• Come on, Defense!: securing your web site
• On the Rise: employment and salary growth
• All They Need: Blackberry users
• So Long, Big Guys: handbag designer