How do you personally use social media to your advantage?

I use my facebook to keep in touch with my friends and know whats going on. I used my Myspace for selling my jewelry and art in the past , but that is no longer effective. Now I just show off my art on my facebook. It’s effective.

Years ago, before ever joining a Q&A website, I think I would have laughed if somebody told me it was possible to form such close and solid online friendships – that some of them could and would go beyond communication on the internet.
But here I am with a flight booked to see lucillelucillelucille in about a month for the second time since her and I “met” each other on Fluther, not to mention I’ve met three other people from Fluther and Answerbag (AB being my first Q&A site). It has proven to me that making friends online isn’t a “small” deal and just a means to pass the time. You can actually form very valuable and cherishable, life-altering relationships and you can easily learn from them, grow from them and love from them even if this person is someone you only see once or twice a year or perhaps never at all. I can never make light of any online friendship again because of how some of them have truly affected me in such a positive way. I can easily say that I love these people and a few of them mean the absolute world to me and don’t entirely know how much their friendship has personally helped my well-being including some emotional/sexual trauma I endured a few years ago which is why I sought out places like these in the first place to help me deal with it. I know most people say that spending too much time on the computer is unhealthy, but for me, sitting at my computer and experiencing that human contact and being fortunate enough to gain genuine friendships is what helped pull me out of the ptsd I was experiencing and I never needed to “talk” about the situation that put me there, publicly or privately to do it either. It just kind of happened, so when I throw around the statement you mean more to me than you’ll ever know it’s the truth. lol
I think I can say I am simply happy. Yes, these communities make me happy. And my time spent here and at AB is what has helped me to slowly but surely regain my confidence to be more social and discontinue withdrawing from society. I’m still a recluse because I’ve always been that way and I do prefer to be at home, but I’m getting better at experiencing more outside of this apartment and to not be so uneasy around large groups of people. My anxiety isn’t as bad as it use to be either.
Some of the credit for that goes to lucillelucillelucille. She tells me to get the fuck out of the house and go do something and experience life even if it’s just a walk through the park and when I do listen to her, I feel really good about being outside or being put in a situation where I have to exercise my social skills.

So, among a few other things, that’s mostly how I’ve used social websites to my advantage.
Being a member of AB and then Fluther has been a decision with tremendous positive outcomes for my personal life. I feel like the site and the friendships I’ve made from it have helped make me well. And that feels pretty amazing. :]

I use mine only to keep in touch with friends. Facebook is exclusively for local friends in my hometown and I use it mainly for organising offline meetups. My blog and Plurk/Twitter are mainly for people I know online only and have met in other places. My plurk is mainly for friends I’ve made in Second Life.

If anyone here wants to keep in touch with me via my blog/plurk/twitter, drop me a PM and I’ll show you where to find me.

I only get on while I’m loading data into my databases during the day. I get things started and then to stop the boredom I get on here. I run millions of records a day and create reports and information charts for top management. So rather than just sit here I get on fluther and/or read.

I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family now that I’m living 400km from home. My best friend had a baby in late October, and I love that I can see pictures of him. I have family who live in California, and a few friends who are living in Italy right now. I can get updates on everyone in one place, which I think is cool.

I used to mod a fan forum, and my friends from there are on my Facebook too. Although I haven’t used the forum for about 4 years, I can still keep in touch with the friends I made.

I don’t use Twitter and I don’t blog, so those are out.

I guess I haven’t used social media to my advantage based on the questions @prolificus posted, but the way I use it serves my needs.

I like facebook for all the info on people I used to work with, friends far away, my daughters’ friends, all fun.