According to CNN, only 27% of Twitter users actually use Twitter to send and receive updates. The rest simply have accounts in order to follow others — usually celebrities or political influences. I find that sad, as that is not how Twitter is intended to be used. Oh well. The 27% of us who do use Twitter like it’s meant to be used will simply have to tweet a bit more!

For me, using Twitter to send and receive updates isn’t difficult at all. As it stands, I’ve been using my Twitter account for a little over three years, and I’ve managed to wrack up almost 20,000 tweets! Stay tuned, as I’ll definitely be launching some sort of giveaway in honor of reaching the 20,000th milestone!

I’ve heard a lot about DandyID, but until recently I didn’t really check into it. Well, now I see the what the hype is all about! DandyID is like a “master” social network. Simply set up a free account, and then begin adding your other social networks. Doing this is as easy as logging into DandyID and navigating to Settings > My Identities. From there you will be presented with an incredibly lonnnnnngggggggggggggg list of social networks. All you need to do is fill in your username. There’s even a little “open in new window” icon that will appear beside each filled out social network link — clicking this will take you to that particular social network profile. This is nice because it makes it easy for you to check on your profiles, and of course confirm that you got the username right.

Here’s a screenshot of what the My Identities page looks like. Note the social networks that are filled in, and the resulting icons that appear to the right (the check mark means that it’s verified, the double window icon is a convenient link to the profile, and the trashcan allows you to delete that particular network from the list):

You can use various plugins and widgets to display your DandyID list of social networks on your blog. Doing it this way would definitely be appealing if you have a lot of social networks to share with your readers. Whether your blog’s focus is on lab coats or something else altogether, making it easy for your readers to see where you’re at on the internet is definitely a good thing! Rather than write out HTML code one social network at a time, you can simply place a plugin or widget in the appropriate area of your blog, and then enjoy it being updated as you add more social networks.

Being online these days no doubt means having accounts with social networks: Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and Twitter, just to name a few. What’s the best way to set up and personalize these accounts? Well, you could go for whatever username suits you at the time, and upload the most recent photos you have the time, and input the most recent information… orrrrrrrrrrr, you could opt for the better solution, which is to be consistent with usernames, bios/personal info and photographs.

By being consistent with your social network presence, you make it easy for others to find you. The first thing you will want to do is select the username that you will use with all of your online accounts. Come up with a slight variation of it, just in case it isn’t available, or can’t be used (this most commonly happens with usernames that are overly long in length, or those usernames that contain hyphens). By sticking to the same name and showcasing your profiles in the same manner, you’ll be consistent and you will ideally brand yourself.

There are many social networks out there. There are also special social networks that help you to organize, group and manage your social network IDs. Such sites include DandyID.org and FriendFeed. HelloTXT and Ping.fm are similar in managing other network IDs, though these two sites would be of interest to you only if you’re looking for a way to quickly update multiple social networks from one source. Why might you want to update multiple social networks from one source? Well, it would certainly make telling everyone about the great discount kitchen sink you just found a lot easier!

If you do check out any of the “special” social networks I mentioned, be sure to look into the various plugins and widgets they have available. These plugins and widgets make it easy for you to quickly share a list of all of the social networks you belong to on your blog, or on your Facebook or MySpace profile.

Do you know of any other “grouping” social network sites? Be sure to share them in the comments. I’m always looking for new ones!

HelloTxt is another one of those “all in one” status update sites that I’ve come to love. Similar to Ping.fm, HelloTxt allows you to send status updates to it, and in turn it will broadcast them to whatever social networking sites you have set up in your profile. Registration is free, of course.

Psst… there’s even a Firefox extension, a WordPress plugin and an Android application!

Twitter is a great social networking tool. You can use it to connect to online and offline friends and see what they’re up to, and to meet up with new individuals.

Because Twitter will evolve as its users do, it’s up to you to choose what to use the social networking platform for. In general, most users use it to:

• share updates of what they’re doing
• broadcast local and regional news
• share breaking news and celebrity gossip (that’s how I found out about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Billy Mays!)
• promote websites, such as the Outer Banks

I tend to do a mixture, though most of my updates are about what I’m personally doing. However, I also use Twitter to broadcast updates of my blogs. Every single time I post a new blog entry, I use a WordPress plugin to tweet an update that feature’s the newly created blog entry’s title and permalink URL. I will also tweet about updated pages, new layouts, new features, and so on and so forth.

Have fun working Twitter to your advantage!

Ping.fm allows you to send one update out to multiple sources. You can send in your status update or message to ping.fm via the web, MSN, a spiffy Firefox plugin, and even your cell phone. Ping.fm in turn will distribute that update to whatever websites and apps you configure with it. Some of the sites you can update include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, AIM and MSN (yes, the clients), Friendster, Plurked, BrightKite, LinkedIn and Identi.ca, just to name a few.

Ping.fm is a great social networking and exposure-gaining tool, for obvious reasons.

If you have a blog, then chances are you follow other blogs. Not only do you keep tabs on what’s happening with other blogs, but you see what’s up with their OWNERS, too. But with so many blogs, social networking sites, accounts with Flickr, Twitter and the like, how do you keep up with everything that’s going on when it’s all coming in from multiple sources? After all, there are only so many hours in a day.

The answer? Lifestream.fm. Lifestream allows you to sign up (for free, of course) and link to various social networking accounts in your profile. Once you have everything set up, it then pulls the most recent activity from each social networking account you have linked, and displays it in your Lifestream. Each displayed activity includes a heading that tells you where it’s from (example: Flickr, Twitter, blog). A handy icon displayed to the left of the activity quickly identifies where it came from.

Lifestream.fm is a breeze to set up, and makes following the online activities of other bloggers so much easier!

For those interested, here is my Lifestream account.

Social networks are a great way to increase traffic to your blog. Sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter allow you to post links and even mini blog entries, so having accounts at these websites are perfect for not only networking with others, but as a way to increase exposure to your own website.

Of course, having accounts with multiple social networks is always nice, but how do you go about updating all of them? Facebook and MySpace are worth logging into, since they are great search tools for finding friends and acquaintances from work, school and other places.

But for other social networking sites, like Plurk and Twitter, I highly recommend you register an account with Ping.fm. Ping.fm allows you to update multiple social networking accounts at once. This is accomplished by adding registered social networking accounts to your Ping.fm profile. Then, when you update Ping.fm with a link or even a little blurb about what you’re doing, it in turn will send out that update to every single linked social network you have set up in your profile.