Since I have accounts on each site, I didn’t need convincing on what those benefits are, because I’ve seen them myself – at least Facebook’s and LinkedIn’s.

For Facebook, I’ve:

• reconnected with a bunch of people from high school who I hadn’t talked to in a long time as we get ready for an upcoming reunion
• kept up with friends from all over the globe
• finished 10th out of 500,000+ in one of the weekly poker tournaments!

And on LinkedIn, I’ve:

• connected with people I otherwise wouldn’t have through the various groups I’ve joined
• targeted potential referrals as I look for work
• been contacted about a freelance job that, while it didn’t work out, gave me hope that possibilities do exist there

Twitter, meanwhile, I’m bad about. In the six months since I’ve joined, I’ve made a total of three updates – and the first one was on election night. I guess I have yet to understand the utility of it. I’m much more likely to make updates on Facebook, since more people I know are on it than on Twitter (at least that I’m aware of), so it’s like Twitter is, dare I say, overkill. And it’s not as if I haven’t tried, either: I even have a Twitterrific app on my iPhone, but it tends to get lost among my other apps (which include Facebook and LinkedIn). I think the solution is to merge my Twitter and Facebook accounts – then read through Lemley’s article again about its benefits.

I’d be interested to hear about what sites other people use in their social networking pursuits.