Sunday 23 June 2013

Social networking

I think I have been lucky in that I just did not miss the internet age. I have always been interested in computers starting with the home PC and I introduced my children to PCs as soon as they became available and the children interested in them. The children are now both in their very late thirties and both know all about computers.  I am also very lucky in the sense that when I have any problems or want a new gadget, there is always somebody to advise and help me.

However, where I still have some problems is getting my head around the social media. It is no longer as alien any as it was in the beginning because at that time I could not imagine why I should ever need social media. Now I am quite familiar with Facebook and can see the advantages. I did not use it much in the beginning - it was just an easy tool to keep track of what my friends and sons were up to but since I started selling online and having my own fan page on Facebook I am slowly getting the hang of it. I can now read the 'insights' and know theoretically, what I should do to get more fans but I am not ready for that for the time being. At least I can see the direction I should take.

With Twitter, I have more problems. Of course I now have a Twitter account but I still cannot quite see the sense of 'following' somebody. Maybe somebody will explain some day. 

The same with Stumbleupon - I cannot see any advantages of using this. Maybe, as with Twitter, somebody will explain someday. Of course, I do use Flickr, which I think is easier to share than Picasa, but these two do not need any explanation. They are just photo sharing sites.

What I do like though, is Pinterest. Pinterest is a social network that I really love and it has saved me lots of money. I used to buy many magazines, from jewellery making, to crafts, to making your home nice and seeing, what other people do with their homes and houses, to gardening, etc. However, what do you do when you have been through the magazines? I still have piles of them lying around the house because there were some interesting pictures and articles that I wanted to keep. However, when you are looking for a specific article, you never find it again because there are too many magazines to go through. The alternative, of course, is to cut the articles or pictures out. Somehow, I never wanted to mutilate the magazines! So here I was with all my magazines and then came Pinterest. It is great! I can search for whatever I want or need and pin it to one of my boards! Additionally, I can delete them whenever I think I have grown tired of that particular item or do no longer need it. On top of that, other people do a lot of the work for me. They search the net for interesting things and all I have to do is PIN IT!


Yes, I love Pinterest. Facebook seems to be a necessity but Pinterest is a love affair!

No comments: