Introduction to Social Networking

Notes

9
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL
NETWORKING

Social networking means linking and networking with your friends and family on
the web space. There are various websites that help you to create a profile for you
and add other members in your network. There are lots of social media websites
or apps that are now-a-days used for this purpose. Most popular amongst these
being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, YouTube and Blogs
etc. These sites allow members to share information, photographs and videos.
These apps also help the users to organize events, chat and play online games. The
connections between people on these sites are network of connections and not just
one to one. Availability of smart phones has made the use of social networking sites
easy for the users. These social networking sites also help the businesses to
promote their product or services. You can write small message, article etc., and
share it among your friends, colleagues and others.

Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
z list the advantages and disadvantages of social networking;
z create profiles on the most popular social media websites/apps;
z use different social networking sites for various purposes;
z make digital footprints.

9.1 Social Networking

Social networking has enormous advantages and benefits when it comes to
reaching a large group of people. While we can connect with our family and friends

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from real life, we can also get to know more people online and make new
connections having similar interests to ours that can help us in number of things.
Notes
Having said this, we must always use the networking websites very carefully as we
are at the stake of losing our personal information in the lack of awareness. Let us
now learn some of the pros and cons in detail.

Advantages of Social Networking

z Connectivity: This is the most important aspect of social networking. People
from all walks of life are able to connect with each other all over the world.
People of different backgrounds are able to share thoughts and ideas.

z Real Time Updates: Using social media, we can get the response to our
queries in real time. In older days, the daily newspaper was the only source
of knowing what happened in the world during the previous day. But now, not
only you can come to know what other users share, but also you can chat with
them in real-time irrespective of their location. Additionally, most of these
websites and apps give you an option to forward the updates further, this cycle
increases the reach to another level.

z Education: Social media has a lot of benefits for the students and teachers.
Using social media, students can easily understand and learn from various
experts and professionals at any time. The entire teaching-learning process
can be conducted at any place, at any time and from any expert. It can be either
by paying the fees or even may be free.

z Marketing and Growth: Social media has made a large impact in the area
of marketing. Imagine your father opens up a new cake shop and you want
to share this news amongst all your family and friends. This can be easily done
in a few clicks and shares. Not only can one market business but also receive
online orders as well as by using a number of other methods help promote
business.

z Awareness: Social media creates awareness and innovates the way people
live. People with similar profession, e.g., farmers, can learn new techniques
from each other. Furthermore, people can get to know of noble causes and
donate to the needy, e.g., all the social media platforms were widely used to
generate funds for the flood affected areas of Kerala in August 2018.

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Disadvantages of Social Networking

Notes z Hacking: Social media profiles need nothing but an email-id or mobile
number to be created, thus there is a risk of fake identity representation.
Stealing someone else’s identity is called ‘hacking’. If someone’s identity
gets hacked the hacker may cause harm as pretending to be someone else.

z Risk of Frauds: As social media promotes information sharing with wider

audience, this creates opportunities for fraudsters to share fraudulent links
and have people to fall into the trap by clicking on harmful links or by sharing
their personal information.

z Cyber or On-line Bullying: Anyone can speak anything on social media and
share their opinion publicly, be it good or bad, be it about a thing or about any
person. Sometimes, in order to trouble others, unethical people bully them
online. This can cause depression or create suicide tendencies in the person
about whom the wrong things are publicized.

z Addiction: One of the greatest disadvantages of social media is that people

become addictive to it. This addiction can cause a lot of side-effects. Further,
it can cause health issues, if someone keeps using laptop/mobile for long time.

Having understood social media, we shall now learn about the common social
media platforms in detail. While, all of them can have similarities as discussed
above, but each of them can also have a different purpose and approach of using
it. Some can be just for entertainment while others can help you in finding a job.
Some can be used for education purposes while some others can be primarily used
to earn money. Let’s us discuss them one by one.

9.2 LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social networking platform, and it would be wrong, if we call it a
professional networking platform as it links networking with a job search platform.
It focuses on our professional journey by letting us prepare a well written
professional profile and then helps us in finding a new job as well.

We can create a LinkedIn account using www.linkedin.com.

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Step 1: Enter your details to create a new account (refer Fig. 9.1).

Notes

Fig. 9.1: Home Page of LinkedIn

Step 2: After creating an account, sign in to your LinkedIn account (refer Fig. 9.2).

vvv

Fig. 9.2: Home Page of LinkedIn Account

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Step 3: Update all your academic details and other useful information under edit
profile section.
Notes
Step 4: Use ‘Jobs’ section to check the jobs recommended by LinkedIn, or you
can manually search for Jobs (refer Fig. 9.3).

Fig. 9.3: Searching Jobs Through LinkedIn

Step 5: Right click on ‘Me’ tab and select the ‘Settings and Privacy’ to make your
account secure.

Fig. 9.4: Make Your Account Secure

Step 6: After selecting ‘Settings and Privacy’, change the necessary information
in ‘Login and security’ (refer Fig. 9.5).

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Notes

Fig. 9.5: Changing the Settings of LinkedIn Account to Make it Safe

Searching for a Job on LinkedIn

In LinkedIn, there will be a list of open jobs at the corporate or MNC or a link to
the company’s employment portal on its website where all the open positions are
listed. Under the ‘Jobs’ we can search for relevant jobs either by writing the job
title, or location or any particular company’s name as well. Time to time LinkedIn
itself keeps on suggesting us the jobs that match our profile.
z Enter your keyword in the ‘Search bar’ at the top of the page (refer Fig. 9.6).

Fig. 9.6: Search Screen of LinkedIn

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z Select an option from the list of the suggestions that appears or click the
‘Search’ icon to run the search (refer Fig. 9.7).
Notes
z You will see the following tabs at the top of the search results page:
„ All
„ People
„ Jobs
„ Content
„ Companies
„ Groups
„ Schools
z Select any of the tabs to view search results in that category. The LinkedIn
search filter is further specified by many other refined search options. It has
additional search filters such as ‘Sort by, Date posted, Companies’ etc.

Fig. 9.7: Search Option in LinkedIn

z The ‘All Filters’ option displays the list of search options. You may select the
required options and click on ‘Apply’ (refer Fig. 9.8).

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Notes

Fig. 9.8: Screen of All Filters Option of Search

z On clicking the 9 dots (as shown in Fig. 9.9), you can find other options of
LinkedIn.

Fig. 9.9: More Options of LinkedIn

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z You can search for videos by clicking on ‘Learning’ of ‘Visit more LinkedIn
products’. It will redirect you to LinkedIn Learning (refer Fig. 9.10).
Notes

Fig. 9.10: LinkedIn Learning Videos Page

Writing an Article in LinkedIn

We can write an article in LinkedIn and post it on the LinkedIn (refer Fig. 9.11).

Fig. 9.11: Writing an Article on LinkedIn

The steps of publishing a post on LinkedIn are:

z Visit LinkedIn ‘Home’.
z Click ‘Write an article’.

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z Add a Header Image.

z Add the Headline and Post Body. Notes
z Create Footer.
z Publish and Share.
After writing an article, publish it by clicking it on Publish button (refer Fig. 9.13).

Fig. 9.12: Publishing the Article on LinkedIn

9.3 Facebook
Facebook is another social networking website that permits the users to make
profiles, upload photos and videos, send messages and stay connected with
friends, family and colleagues. It would be interesting to know that Facebook was
created by Mark Zuckerberg, and he actually started its initial version during his
graduation itself. You can use Facebook to promote your institution/organization
and can also tag your friends/colleagues in pictures/videos or any other posts.
You can create a Facebook account using www.facebook.com (refer Fig. 9.13).

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Step 1

Notes

Fig 9.13: Home Page of Facebook

After entering all the above details, you can create your account.
Step 2: After logging into your Facebook account, the main page of your
Facebook account will be displayed (refer Fig. 9.14).

Fig. 9.14: Home Page of Facebook Account

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Step 3: To change the settings of your account, click on the down arrow as marked
in the Fig 9.14 and choose settings option. On selecting the settings option,
Security and Login page will be displayed (refer Fig. 9.15). Notes

Fig. 9.15: Security and Login Details of the Facebook Account

Step 4: You should keep oneself secure on the social media. For that you can add extra
security to your account. Use Two-factor authentication (refer Fig. 9.16 and 9.17).

Fig. 9.16: Two-Factor Authentication to Your Account

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Notes

Fig. 9.17: Add Extra Security to Your Account by Enabling

Two-Factor Authentication

Step 5: To change the settings in such a way that only your friends can see the
details of your account (refer Fig. 9.17). This will help you to keep yourself secure
on the Facebook platform.

Fig. 9.18: Changing the Privacy Settings and Tools

Step 6: Many times, some apps try to gather some information of your account.
You can also block such apps. Use the option ‘Manage Blocking’ (refer Fig.
9.19). Using this you can also block some of the unwanted users.

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Notes

Fig. 9.19: Manage Blocking

After creating your account and making it secure, you can start posting your
message on Facebook.

How to Add Friends on Facebook

We can search for our old school classmates, friends, relatives etc., on the
Facebook. Facebook is making the world smaller by connecting through our
family, friends etc.
To Add a Friend by Name on a Computer:
z Click the search bar at the top of any Facebook page (refer Fig. 9.20).
z Type your friend’s name into the search bar and select the name from the list.

Fig. 9.20: Searching a Friend on Facebook

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z It will show the list of people with same name. To send someone a friend
request, click ‘Add Friend’ next to their profile picture.
Notes
z A friend request will be sent to your friend’s Facebook account. He/She has
the choice to accept your request. Then only he/she will be added to your
friend list and will be able to view your posts.
How to Share Information on Facebook
Generally, people use Facebook for sharing their personal or professional
information. This social media is widely used to connect with friends/relatives so
that they are able to get to know about you. Sharing something on your account
is done by creating post. Post is a message or information that you write in the
Facebook account.
To Share Something on Facebook:
z Create Post option is available on top of your home page (refer Fig. 9.21).

Fig. 9.21: Creating a Post

Click on the … (three dots) as shown in the screenshot above for creating a
post.
z Add a text update or click the type of post you had liked to share (example:
‘Photo/Video, Feeling/Activity’) (refer Fig. 9.22).

Fig. 9.22: Create Post Screen

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Type the content or insert photo/video or tag friends etc.,

z One can select the settings of the post also (refer Fig. 9.23). Notes

Fig. 9.23: The Settings for the Post

z You may select

„ Public – it will publish the post to all.
„ Friends – it will display the post to your friends only.
„ Friends except – it allows you not to display the post to few friends.
„ Specific friends – it allows you to display the post to few selected friends.
„ Only me – it will display the post to yourself only.
z After adding a post, click on Post to share it.

9.4 Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking microblogging service that permits registered
members to broadcast short posts referred to as ‘tweets’. Twitter members will
broadcast tweets and follow different users’ tweets by using multiple platforms and
devices. Tweets and replies to tweets can be sent by Twitter’s website as well as
the mobile application.
A ‘tweet’ is just a post on Twitter and can contain maximum of 280 characters.
Twitter is more of a public platform which means unlike Facebook or LinkedIn,
where members ought to approve social connections, anyone having a Twitter

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account can follow anyone in just a single click. In order to connect a tweet to a
general topic, members add hashtags to a keyword in their post. The hashtags are
Notes sort of a meta tags, and displayed as #keyword. One can create a twitter account
using www.twitter.com
Step 1: Create a new account after clicking on Sign up now.

Fig. 9.24: Login Page of Twitter

Step 2: After sign-up, you can login to your account (refer Fig. 9.24) and can see
the home page of your account as shown in Fig. 9.25.

Fig. 9.25: Home Page of Twitter

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How to Tweet
z Type the message into the What’s happening box at the top of your Home Notes
timeline, or click the Tweet button as shown in the screenshot given in Fig.
9.26. You can include photos, a GIF, or a video in the tweet.

Fig. 9.26: For Composing a Message and Tweet

How to Follow People on Twitter
z Search for the account or the person you would like to follow.
z It will display the list of the sites for search options.
z Select the site that you want to follow by pressing the enter key (refer Fig. 9.27).

Fig. 9.27: Following Microsoft Account

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9.5 Blog
Notes Blog (weblog) could be a website that is sort of a diary or journal. Someone who
frequently writes blogs is known as a ‘Blogger’ and the process of writing these
articles is known as blogging. They express their opinions and thoughts in a blog.
Video blog or Vlog is a blog containing video material. Though there are plenty
of websites used for blogging, here we will use ‘Blogger’ i.e., www.blogger.com
to understand more about blogs.
Step 1: The home page of blogger.com as shown below.

Fig. 9.28: Home Page of Blogger.com

Step 2: Click on create your blog.

Step 3: It will ask you for your gmail account. Login to your gmail account and
you can see the screen as shown below.

Fig. 9.29: Select the Blogger Profile That You Want

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Step 4: Click on ‘Create New Blog’ as shown in Fig. 9.30.

Notes

Fig. 9.30: Blogger Welcome Page

Step 5: Enter the title, address and choose template for your blog as shown in
Fig. 9.31.

Fig. 9.31: Creating a New Blog

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Step 6: Click on ‘New post’ to start blogging (refer Fig. 9.32).

Notes

Fig. 9.32: Creating a New Post

Step 7: Write your blog and click on ‘Publish’ (refer Fig. 9.33).

Fig. 9.33: The Text Editor for Writing Blog

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Step 8: After publishing your blog, it will allow you to edit or share your blog (refer
Fig. 9.34).
Notes

Fig. 9.34: Your First Blog

9.6 YouTube
Another widely used social media platform is YouTube. It not just allows you to
reach a wide number of audience, but has many other advantages and still it is

Fig. 9.35: YouTube Search

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extremely simple to use. It can be used without even creating an account. By simply
visiting the website https://www.youtube.com/ will allow you to browse through
Notes different videos and search for your preferred videos. However, to save your
preferences, you can create an account.
YouTube can be accessed via its mobile applications as well. As YouTube is a
Google product, it allows you to login using your existing gmail account or if you
create a new account, that account will again work across all google services.
YouTube homepage will show you the list of latest trending videos and you can
use the search box for your content. Following screenshot shows a YouTube
search with the keyword ‘nios vocational courses’:
As it can be seen in the Fig. 9.35, a simple search will return the results that can
have both the videos and suggested channels. You can simply watch any relevant
video or go to a channel you like. Let’s have a look at the video we got in the results.

Fig. 9.36: YouTube Channel Page

Above screenshot shows the homepage of a channel named ‘NIOS Vocational

Courses’. We can Subscribe to this channel by clicking the ‘SUBSCRIBE’ button.
Subscribing to a channel allows the channel to send us notifications when they
upload a new video. YouTube is gaining publicity in the education industry these
days. People use it for online lectures, classroom sessions and trainings. Additionally,
we can create our own YouTube channel and upload new videos ourself.

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All the above mentioned social networking sites are used for online learning,
different types of communications, professional development, making friends,
Notes
sharing content, uploading videos etc. Every individual must maintain the cyber
ethics. User has to be very careful while using and posting messages, videos or any
other material in social networking sites. We must not be involved in wrong or
improper activities.

9.7 Digital Footprints

On using internet, every user leaves behind huge amount of information about the
various activities the user has performed on internet. The information that the user
leaves behind after using internet is known as Digital Footprint. It includes the
‘websites’ the user visits, ‘emails’ sent by the user and the information submitted
by the user while using ‘online’ services.
There are two main classifications for digital footprints: passive and active.
A passive digital footprint is formed once knowledge is collected without the
knowledge of owner (also known as data exhaust).
Active digital footprints are created once personal data is discharged deliberately
by a user for the aim of sharing information regarding oneself. It may be by means
of websites or social media that the user visits.
Various techniques can be used to reduce the digital trail. Some of them are
mentioned below:
z Check all your privacy settings.
z Remove old accounts.
z Unsubscribe from mailing lists.
z Register with a different email address.
z Use stealth mode when browsing.
z Think before you post.
z Use anti-tracking tools.

Intext Questions 9.1

1. Write True or False for the following statements.
(a) Excessive usage of social media creates health hazard.

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(b) People from same walk of life can connect with each other through the
social media.
Notes
(c) Facebook was created by Marc Zuckerberg.
(d) Maximum 250 characters are allowed in a tweet.
2. Fill in the blanks.
(a) ..................... is a trail of data.
(b) People who write blog are known as .....................
(c) ..................... is a business and employment-oriented service.

What You have Learnt

z Social networking website is a platform that enables the users to communicate
through internet with other users over the web.
z Some of the social networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
LinkedIn, WhatsApp, YouTube and Blogs etc.
z LinkedIn is a popular social website focuses on our professional journey by
letting us prepare a well written professional profile and then helping us in
finding a new job as well.
z We can use Facebook for sharing personal or professional information.
z Twitter is a free social networking microblogging service that permits
registered members to broadcast short posts referred to as ‘tweets’. To
connect a tweet to a general topic, members add hashtags (#) to a keyword
in their post.

Terminal Exercise
1. What is the importance of social media?
2. Explain the disadvantages of social media.
3. How to create an account in LinkedIn? Explain the steps.
4. Explain the various types of digital footprints.

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Answers to Intext Questions Notes

9.1
1. (a) True (b) False
(c) True (d) False
2. (a) Digital footprint (b) Blogger
(c) LinkedIn

Key Learning Outcome

z Able to exploit the large potential of social networking sites responsibly.

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