Internet Activism Cookbook

This is a simple 5-step recipe for using the leading social network services currently available. It's all in the preparation, once you get to step 5 you'll see how easy this really is, promise!

You're going to need a few ingredients:

1. User name - in most cases, it is highly recommended to adopt an anonymous identity, both to protect yourself and your friends or family. Check to see if your chosen name is available as an email address (by trying to create a new email account) and also on the majority of social network sites - use http://namechk.com/ - before you commit. There are no solid rules about which email service to use, I stick with Gmail for convenience (eg it links to YouTube, Picasa & Blogger) and out of habit, and would never use Yahoo or Hotmail as I know them to have proven less reliable in the past. However, in China and possibly some other countries, Gmail is regularly hacked. A less well-known but otherwise reliable email service might be a safer bet. If you or a friend has a secure web server with email then that would be preferable. Make a second free email account to use as your "alternative", which Gmail for example will ask for. Then delete that account and make another, changing it in your new main email. Do not give your real email address to any service you intend to continue using even when initially signing up, especially not for email or FaceBook.

2. Avatar - At least to begin with, think about selecting a simple, recognisable image that you can use on all your accounts. Later, you can screw around with it all you like but when you start out, people need to see your pic to know it's "you" because people are far more likely to use visual clues than text. For the same reason, do not go with default avatars like the "Egg" on twitter - those are only used by spammers and you are likely to be ignored or even blocked!

3. Create your accounts ( use http://namechk.com/ for some other site suggestions )

with different passwords for each one! Yes, it can be done. Use a password generator or a memory trick and if you can't remember them all, at least store them securely.

Email first, then use that email for the rest:

FaceBook - Your shiny new email account will help you avoid the horrible invasiveness of FB and other applications wanting to "find your friends" for you

Twitter - You'll want to do some reading and searching for lists of people to follow, and you might want to try using an application like

TweetDeck to access Twitter if you start engaging with a lot of people, because their own web front end for users is pretty but fairly basic.

FriendFeed A kind of love it or leave it alternative to Twitter

Tumblr Basic blogging - not much happens here, think of it as insurance

Blogger Major blogging platform where you can connect with and follow other blogs

WordPress The other major blogging platform where you can connect with and follow other blogs

Flickr (use with caution - they are not always activist-friendly)

Picasa

Vimeo Good insurance against videos being taken off YouTube unexpectedly

YouTube (use with caution - they are not always activist-friendly)

Posterous - do this last, because you are now going to add all your other sites to the Auto Post feature in Posterous

4. Set up AutoPost

Sign in to Posterous and click on Manage, then on the AutoPost tab, and add each service you've signed up for, reading and following any instructions that appear as you add each one. if you run into difficulties with adding one or other service, leave it until you've had time to get more familiar with everything, then try searching for help on that service's website. you really should check out user guides and help for sites you sign up to, anyway.

If you don't like Posterous for some reason or just can't get on with it, take a look at Amplify.com, which offers pretty much the same features.

5. Start posting!

Go to your new email account and email your first post. If you want to add hashtags to the automatically generated tweet, make sure you include them in the Subject of the email along with the title using exactly this format ((tags:firsttag,secondtag)) - replace "firsttag,secondtag" with the actual tags you want to use and leave the brackets and that important bit at the start "tags:" as shown above.

Example Email:

Posted via email from lissping