Using Twitter as an example, and with Twitterminolgy, draw your own comparisons from how those social networking for the long haul, the commitment, evaluate tell tale actions:

You are a twatcher. You’re a new tweeple who lurks, like people do in online forums. In person at networking or social events, you may hang around the edges for a while and observe. Many tweeple, including me, have a sense for the twatcher: a twatcher joins and may be at Twitter for a while. They add followers but instead of tweeting, they prefer to sit back and watch the tweetstream. They may not have a description, or a link to a website or blog and their photo is that ugly, default avatar.

You are a twistener. This could be a new twitterer or tweeple who could have joined anytime. They have followers and are following others. They contribute little of themselves to the conversation however since their conversation either includes a reply or a RT, it’s a tell tale sign they prefer to listen. And that’s okay.

You are a twurker. My Twitter friend, Kim Murphy, on Twitter, @Kmacopy defines twurkers as tweeple who just have a preference to lurk. There may not even be evidence of watching – minimal adding of followers and just the fewest tweets. Many people start at this level and either transform to a full fledge tweeple or become a tweakling.

You are a tweakling. There are been at least two research reports, one from a Harvard Business School professor, and another from the research firm Nielsen, with findings that many people join Twitter and are gone within a month or so. Twitter takes more time than a month, a plan and a thoughtful approach to find your place, get followers, be following the tweeples you want and begin real relationships.

If you are new to Twitter something to remember is that when you start following people are evaluating you in the first few seconds to make a decision about following you or not. If you find yourself on any social networking website you want to have a plan, put it into action and adjust if your intentions aren’t met.

There is a good deal out there but my friend Kathy and myself are pretty sure, our Twitterspeak is unique. What Twitterspeak have you come up with?

Getting started on social media can often be deceptively simple – What’s the big deal? You sign up. – or intimidating – Why am I being asked for my date of birth? – or overwhelming – How do I find people to friend or follow?

The truth is that this is a world of official and unofficial rules. It is easier if you start out knowing what’s what, and this is probably especially important if you’re more of an introvert.

Let’s imagine you already use email, search for information on Google, and read blog posts. But you’ve never joined any social media sites. How do you start?

1. Decide how comfortable you are sharing information about yourself. And the corollary to this – how wide a sharing of this information are you willing to do.

If you’re a book author and want people to buy your book, it’s a good idea to decide that you will share personal (although not private) information to as wide an audience as possible. If you only want to connect online with former high school friends, your target audience is much smaller.

If sharing information as an introvert makes you somewhat nervous, think about what it means to be personal as opposed to private. Personal is a good marketing book you just read that you can recommend to help others; private is a fight you had with your business partner over implementing the marketing steps recommended in the book.

2. Ask online savvy friends which popular site they would recommend you start with based on your goal. (And do start with just one while getting your feet wet in this brave new world.)

• If your goal, for example, is to have a wide audience, then Twitter may be the best choice because of its “open to everyone” format.

• If you only want to search for high school friends, then Facebook may be the best choice as you can confine your information to a very small circle and can search by name for those long-long friends.

• If you want to make connections to help with a future job search, then LinkedIn, whose format is set up for such a process, may be the best choice for you.

3. Once you have chosen the site you’ll start on, do a Google search for information on effectively using that site. That’s right, before you ever sign up, read some blog posts that provide guidance on effectively using the site.

Now this isn’t a research project that serves as an excuse for postponing actually joining the site. Just learn a few of the basic “rules.” And if you do this step, you’ll be way ahead of most other people who start on social media without first doing any research. Thus in this case being an introvert can give you a leg up.

And why not learn this on the site itself? Because most of these sites have inadequate information for newcomers or an abundance of information that overwhelms newcomers.

Plus, to encourage you to sign up, the site’s home page says something like: To join now just do this. And it’s only after you’ve provided your name, email, password, etc. that you’re left wondering “What do I do next?”

4. If you’re starting on a site that doesn’t require your real name, choose a username carefully. You want to think about seeing this name used all across cyberspace as lots of social media sites pull information from other social media sites (with your permission, of course).

You may initially think, for example, of choosing the name of your first book. But what happens when you write a second book? Or perhaps using the name of the book won’t work well for a site that is focused on a non-book arena.

Remember that what you do on the internet theoretically lives forever. So this choice of a username should be considered carefully and for continued use in the long-run. (Once you’ve established a good online reputation with one username you don’t want to start at square one again with a new username.)

5. Immediately post a photo of yourself – a headshot in which sunglasses and a baseball cap are not blocking people from totally seeing your eyes. (This does not have to be professional-photographer quality but should not be blurry.)

This photo should be one that will also work on social media sites you will join in the future because you want consistency across these sites. You want consistency to help people recognize and connect with you on more than one site. (The same for your username.)

Keep in mind that the photos for Twitter are quite small. (Check out my photo at http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller if you want an example.) And even if you’re starting on Facebook, only include a headshot of yourself. Do not include other people and preferably not animals and other props.

By posting a good headshot of yourself you’re signaling that you’re interested in connecting with people – real people such as yourself whether introverted or not – and you’ll be off to a good start on your first social media site.

Now that you’ve read these five tips for starting on your first social media site, what are you waiting for? Join the cyberspace social media community today.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is a National Internet Business Examiner at InternetBizBlogger.com and the head of the internet marketing company MillerMosaicLLC.com. On July1st the company is launching the monthly Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program.

If you’re not on Twitter, and you’re an introvert, this blogpost by Yael will get you there:

Twitter: An Introvert’s Heaven

I am a classic introvert — I prefer staying home to going out. I’m not a misanthrope; I like people. In fact, there are very few things I like more than intelligent conversation. However, I get nervous in large gatherings – especially networking events.

In a networking event, I can muster up courage to go over to someone standing alone and try to talk to that person. But when the conversation seems to stop or the person talks about something I’m not interested in, I’m always thinking how do I exit this person gracefully? I leave but I never manage to leave gracefully.

Then when there are two people talking to each other I don’t go over because I worry that they might be having a private conversation.

Then there’s the group of people standing in a tight circle. How do I enter the circle/conversation? And when I stand there I feel like I’m being creepy and eavesdropping on the conversation.

Twitter solves all these problems easily.

• Any tweet that can be seen is public and I can respond to it. And if someone’s tweeting something I’m not interested in I don’t have to respond.

I interned in a small department at a large company. I would run into technical issues and ask the person sitting next to me. But I’d feel badly because I’d be interrupting the person’s work.

• With Twitter I can ask a question and know that, if someone answers, it’s because the person wants to help and I’m not interrupting.

Maybe it’s because I’m a introvert or maybe it’s because I’m a writer but I tend to narrate in my head what I’m doing. Not “This lunch is good” but “I finally finished that project.” If you do that then Twitter is for you.

• Just tweet the stuff you narrate in your head. If it’s about work that you’re doing, someone else might reply back to you and start a conversation.

As I said earlier, I am interested in what people are doing but it’s hard to work up the courage to go up to someone and ask.

• With Twitter I can follow people who are doing things I’m interested in and I don’t have to ask what they’re doing because they’re tweeting about it.

• And I can ask if I want to. The conversation is usually quick and, when I have nothing more to say, I stop tweeting. No awkward physically disengaging from talking to the person.

If you’re an introvert and haven’t joined Twitter yet, I strongly urge you to do so right now. And you can follow me at www.twitter.com/MillerMosaicLLC.

For more information about setting up Twitter and ways to use to it, check out my collection of links on the subject at http://delicious.com/YaelKMiller/twitter+tips

How perfect are these ideas for the introvert?

Don’t you think they balance our need for alone-time, structure and deciding with whom we want to build deeper relationships with?

What do you think?

For clarification: If you are more introverted, you prefer time being alone because it is in your own company that you get your energy. If you are more extroverted, you prefer being around and with other people because it is with other people that you find you are energetically charged up.

That’s it. Nothing else. Certainly the way we recharge will influence the activities we have preference for, but even the term “social” in networking, is not all that attractive to an introvert if you understand the energy factor.

The truth is, research shows, that our brains actually process information differently to give us this preference. And the preference doesn’t mean that we can’t either learn, understand or practice some of the activities or actions that might be associated with the other preference.

Claim #1: More than 50% of people say they spend more time chatting online than they do actually speaking to friends and family. Introverts of course speak with friends and family! As an INTJ, my preference IS first speaking with people who I already am in deep relationship with before getting into conversation with new people. In the short time I’ve been actively participating in social networking, just about 6 months now, my conversations with my friends and family – on the telephone and in-person, have not diminished. Maybe I’m in the other 50% of the survey.

So: #1 – If you spend more time online with social networking, you are engaging in more conversations, that is, talking with more people – doesn’t sound like introverting to me. It would be exhausting for an introvert.

Claim #2: Since social networking websites, people makes less phone calls, send less texts and emails, watch less television and spend less time on computer games. Let’s say that there is some truth that people are now, because of social networking websites, watching less television. Can you claim that is a bad thing? Can you say that it is actually “making” introverts? The correlation between less time in front of the television and more time online with social networking websites would equate more to – more extoverts! One rally cry of a true introvert is “One is company and two is a crowd.” Many introverts don’t enjoy television because much of it has no depth. So this again, is one introvert, who already doesn’t engage in tube watching. If anything, social networking is engaging me in more conversations with other people. That’s – extroverting.

#2 – If you are spending more time attending to conversations online than with your telephone, your texting or in front of your television, then it seems the venue for your extroverting – in this case conversations with people – has simple changed.

Claim #3: “One in five people who use the sites are “constantly checking” for new messages and updates.” I’m still not getting how this would make for an introvert? Addiction maybe, but not related to introvert or extrovert.

#3 – If you are constantly checking for new messages and updates, maybe you need a lesson in time management. Or you need to examine your goals for online social networking. It’s a stretch to equate “constantly checking” with being an introvert. It means you have to either be in front of your computer or tied to your cell phone to get the messages that regularly.

What is an introvert? What is an extrovert?

If you are more introverted, you prefer time being alone because it is in your own company that you get your energy.

If you are more extroverted, you prefer being around and with other people because it is with other people that you find you are energetically charged up.

What do you think? Do the claims of this article, or others going around the internet, producing introverts?

Twitter can take time and that means energy. What it means for an introvert is to know what to do in order to conserve energy and maximize your effectiveness. What other do’s can you add that might be natural for your style?

Regardless of how you use Twitter, it can be an integral part of your plan. What did I miss? It can’t be a complete list since it’s a process. What else do we want to avoid?