Social Networking and Blogging with Squidoo

If you are not familiar with Squidoo and its unique style of social networking and blogging then you should seriously pop over and give it a try.

If you don't know much about Squidoo its a way that you can blog, photo blog, make money blogging and social network all at the same time.

I was recently awarded Giant Squid status. The minimum requirement for this is to create 50 so called 'lenses'. Lenses are a general template that you populate with pre-created modules (think of them as mini templates)You select from a wide range of types. The squidoo modules allow you to post your own written content, photos,videos,run polls, and integrate things such as Amazon, eBay and Zazzle. You can also link to Twitter, Flikr and bring in RSS feeds.

Lenses are themed on topic of interest. For example I've built ones on a wide range of themes like my genealogy and family history lens The Border Reivers, and I've created lenses on quirky themes such as How to open a champagne bottle using a sword another on Disguise Camouflage Deception and Mimicry business themes such as Marketing Ethics and Criticism, and other business themes such as Leadership, and ways to achieve Competitive Advantage.

A full list of my lenses can be found in what the Squidoo social networking community call a Lensography.

When I first started on Squidoo I only had a couple of lenses for many months. Then I was contacted by Michelle Willow to join a social networking group of Squidoo users who share tips and encouragement to go for Giant Squid status. I was drafted into a sub group led by Free Lance writer Carol Fisher, who was a great help in offering content and design advice.

As you learn more about Squidoo and the people and relationships in the Squidoo social networking community you discover that it is supported by a huge range of resources, it has its own forums and specialised squidoo lenses and there is a constant and vibrant technical development programme that adds and refines lens and module features.

Where did the idea originate from? Squidoo was the brainchild of Seth Godin, you can learn more the background to Squidoo here.What is Squidoo.

I really enjoy Squidoo. It is good way to do social networking, its a complementary form of blogging, it allows you to share knowledge and know how, and to photo blog as well. My next task is to create 100 lenses.