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- Use common sense and available security measures to protect yourself and your information. Do not give personal, detailed information to people until you are positive you know them or they have some legitimate link to you.
- Set social networking pages with your information on them to “private.” This will allow you to screen people who can visit your pages. Never get too detailed in your profile. Leave out addresses, telephone numbers, etc.
- Become “a fan” of groups you want to track. These can be family groups, genealogical societies, professional societies or just people who share common interests.
- Use Internet compatible genealogy software. Among many fabulous features, some genealogy software allows you to create professional-looking websites automatically from your data. You can do it in narrative format, as a pedigree chart or family group sheet format or a combination of these. This will make it easy to share and exchange information with your friends and family history connections.
- Scan your photographs and share old photos as well as recent photos with family members and friends. This is an excellent way to help you identify people in your unidentified photos. Your family will begin to take an interest in family history as they enjoy your images.
- Make video clips to share. Try taping Grandpa telling the story of how he met Grandma. Conduct short interviews that will spark people to add to those stories, clarify details and tell stories of their own.
- Actively search for family members by typing names into each social networking site’s “friend search.” Visit the pages of those to whom you are already connected and scan their friends and family members for people you might know too! Or, try typing in a surname to fish for people who might be able to help you break down brick walls and flesh out family histories.
- Share the news of births, marriages and other important life events as they happen.
- Report important research findings to a mass audience instantly! People will build on your findings and share theirs.
- Create a page for each ancestor and send a link to the page to all of your family members and close friends. Invite all descendants to become fans of the page and ask them to contribute information and materials to make it better.
Another great tip when using any Internet site including social media sites is to read and understand the Terms of Service (TOS). A TOS governs what data of yours the site can share with others especially third parties.
There have been several issues in the past with Facebook changing its TOS without proper notification to its users.
Promoting your blog shouldn’t stop when you step outside the blogosphere. Add your blog’s URL to your email signature and business cards. Talk about it in offline conversations. It’s important to get your name and your blog’s URL noticed offline, too.