To discuss social media training for all of you

Dear blog readers:

I have a gift for you today. It is the gift of ESPN hottie Erin Andrews' nude video. No, just kidding. Just wanted to put that in there to disappoint porn seekers. Sorry, boys. You'll just have to make due with reruns of Step-by-Step and Boy Meets World and pray it's the later episodes when Al and Topanga got hot.

No, my gift is free training on how to use social media, from Facebook to Twitter. You see, I got such training at work yesterday, and I feel it is my duty as an American to shop at Walmart and love the first two Mighty Ducks moviesto educate those in need.

I guess you all will just have to suffice instead.

Here's practical advice on how to use some of the most popular social media tools. Please feel free to dispense your own advice:

Twitter:- When retweeting (RT, as it's called), it's preferential to RT your own tweets. That way, people really know you mean business. For full effect, RT yourself three times and drive it home.
- If a strange woman named Holly, Natasha or Candy want to follow you, and they are following 3,000 people but no one is following them, do not be alarmed about spam. They are just givers, by nature. If you want, they'll give it all to you for about $2.99 a minute, or 140 characters at a time.*
- All of us want to have maximum follower counts. I'm up over 150 myself. You, too, can easily do this, by doing it the WildARSChase way: Beg, stalk and appear overly friendly. It may also improve your chances if you put a photo of a beloved Muppet as your icon. Or your cleavage. Or a beloved Muppet's cleavage, as I can't imagine someone not following a user with a Miss Piggy teet shot.

Facebook:
- I cannot stress this enough. Please, please, PLEASE with cherries on top, keep your status as updated as possible. I will not friend someone who does not let me know the duration and effectiveness of their bowel movements, nor will I comment on a status that does not frequently remind me the person is bored. I need to know your bored, so then I can say, "yeah me 2" and then we can both be lame together.
- Send as many Facebook apps to as many people as possible. People love getting useless apps. It's like Christmas, but the gifts are free and the remorse is fleeting. It's even better when you send them to people you only kinda talked to in high school but are now FB friends with, because they love knowing you'll take the time to send them an app request, but can't bother to ask how they are doing. Sharing apps is caring.
- Understand that if you like a guy/girl, they will be checking your photos. Please use this as an opportunity to add even more embarrassing shots of you falling down drunk, closing your eyes when the shot is taken, having a bad hair day or anything that involves a walk of shame. Potential lovers will flock to your honesty, just as soon as they get rid of the image of you puking in a parking lot.
- A true Facebook user will analyze every relationship status change of every friend. Use Twitter to quickly spread gossip and rumors about changes from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" to "single." You may be doing the couple a favor by expediting the process through libel and slander. They'll thank you later, perhaps with a friend request!

StumbleUpon/Del.icio.us
- Please refrain from referring others to sites that everyone knows are awesome. Use this as a chance to highlight rare finds, like a porn site you can't get enough of that offers hard-to-legally-find bestiality clips, or the social networking site for recovering goths. You'll be lauded by peers.
- Keep respected sites on their toes by giving them negative reviews. It will amaze fellow users how you found problems with popular sites that no one else seemed to care about. Tell ESPN.com it doesn't offer enough table tennis coverage. You'll be the toast of the town, and respected by all two of your StumbleUpon friends.

MySpace
- No amount of background theme and illegible white on white text is enough. Readers of your MySpace page want to work hard to read what you have to say, so add wild photos as the background, make all of your font translucent.
- Please join a bazillion groups to show you have a wide palette, ranging from alcoholism to loving that one show you saw a few times as a kid.
- Write in ALL CAPS. SOME MIGHT SAY IT'S ANNOYING. I SAY IT CLEARLY SHOWS WHO'S THE BOSS AND WHO COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THAT CAPS LOCK LIGHT.
- You have a moral obligation to MySpace stalk people who don't know you look at their profile photos. It's what our Founding Fathers would have done. Ben Franklin totally would have MySpace stalked his mistress. He would have invented MySpace, too.

Friendster
- No matter what people tell you, continue using this site and tell the world, "Screw you and your MySpace." It's only a matter of time before Facebook users realize their mistakes and come back.


AOL Instant Messenger

- AOL, do me a solid and discontinue my account. I'm afraid I have an away message up from when I last logged in that probably says I'm off to prom. Thanks.




Tinyurl.com/Bit.ly

- Anyone can shorten their url once. But you, blogger, can shorten your shorterned url! Save your readers both time and brain cells by doubling up. Or, try a triple shortener, and go from this: http://wildarschase.blogspot.com to this: http://tinyurl.com/wac to this: /

Ning.com's 20 Something Blogger's group
- Buck the trend. Be the 45-year-old cougar in the 20-something group, and the men will flock to you like a Trekkie to Comic Con. Bonus points if you have your 20-something-year-old child add you as a friend.
- Too many 20-something bloggers write about things people are age relate to: drinking, being broke, reality tv, the Tori vs. Kelly Saved by the Bell years. Why not tackle a different age, like knitting, Vietnam or propery taxes? Consider yourself ahead of the trend.

Feedburner:
- Refuse to offer your feed in an easily accessible manner. Make people work for it, like dangling a carrot from a stick. Hide the RSS link in a post no one read about your feelings on health care reform.

They'll be so happy to have found it, finally, that they just won't be able to containg themselves from ripping you apart through all your entries!

ICQ
Keep on keepin' on. It's not dead until you and millions of Twitter users say it is.



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* Some guys can only last 20 characters though. That's known as premature characterization.

If you want to actually follow me on these various things, go to the sidebar. Or, if you're using your RSS reader, well aren't you just something? At least follow me @wildarschase and celebrate your technological proclivities.