A Social Media Survival Guide: How to Use the Most Popular Platforms and Protect Your Privacy

by Melody Karle

The every person's guide to social media... how to use it and what never to do. Are you trying to figure out how to safely use social media but finding yourself struggling? Here's a book specifically designed to help regular people figure out social media platforms. It begins with a chapter about social media basics: how they normally work, why people use them, and general safety tips. It is easy to get confused by the large number of options that are out there so this book breaks down each major network into its own chapter. Chapters are included for: -Facebook -Snapchat -Pinterest -LinkedIn -Instagram -YouTube -Twitter -Reddit, and -Tumblr. Because each social media platform has its their own rules, benefits, and challenges, each chapter gives a summary of the platform and tells the reader why people use it. Next, each chapter has a glossary of terms to explain language and slang that are used. This will help people who are new to social media learn about terminology like subreddits, retweets, and more. If readers decide to use the platform (or already use it and want to learn more), each chapter guides users through a "how-to" of using each platform. This includes the basic functionality, setting up profiles, settings, and odd features that even current users may not know about. Privacy and safety are also covered, with a platform-specific section devoted to these important issues in each chapter. Two final chapters cover other notable social media platforms that readers might want to know about and archiving tips for saving social media posts and information. This book can help people new to social media, people joining new social media, and people who are already on but want to learn how to better manage and protect their accounts.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business

184 pages, Hardcover

Published March 15, 2020

About the author

Melody A. Karle (formerly Condron) is a librarian and library consortium manager at the Montana State Library. Previously she worked at the University of Houston and the Lincoln County Public Libraries in Montana, where she did everything from story time and technology training to genealogy research. She holds an MLS from the University of North Texas, a BA in Communications and Media Studies from Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. In 2020 she completed a certificate in Digital Curation. At home Melody is a vegetable gardener, Lego enthusiast, Scrabble player, family archivist, and animal rescuer.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

#ASocialMediaSurvivalGuide #NetGalley

A very useful guide to protect our identities through the social platforms. The book is an essential to teach children and teenagers about the danger inside the web. I highly recommend it.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I still had living grandparents and any of them used the Internet, this would be a simple, easy-to-understand introduction for them to social media.

It was a nice push to try and do more with LinkedIn, but otherwise not very personally relevant for me.

Overall, the book does what it's intended to do. Might be too basic for a lot of readers.

[Paulyna C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and has some tips from the most known social media platforms to be used.

[Zorya Sonyats · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a book for those who just start their social media usage, if you are gen z you won’t find anything new in this book

[Kristin (Kritters Ramblings) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An almost textbook for most/all the social medias that are out there. I knew going into this book that I felt pretty savvy on some of websites, but was interested to read the basics for all and get a schooling on some that I don't use at all.

I would recommend this book to any parent to read themselves if they are not versed in social media and then also to read it with their kids. It really talks about privacy and which social media websites that are built to be very public and some that are built to be more private circles. I think this would be something to review with your child as they start signing up and choosing which social media avenue will be the best one for them.

I did wonder while reading this book how quickly it could be obsolete and outdated. As there are constant updates and new apps added, this book may need to be quickly updated and reviewed as our world and technology are ever changing.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A number of the most used sites and a few extra sites looked at. Some images relating to topics like terminology, settings, and security. A good introduction to these sites - not site-specific.