So you are about to start with this ‘online stuff’ for real. Here are some practical how to’s on the first basic steps which when set up will save you some time, keep you up to date with the sites you are following and enable you to share information all from one page.

Step 1. Use Firefox as your browser, not Safari or Internet Explorer.  Not because it’s better, but because it has lots of social media add-ons which are about to make your life a lot easier. Type Firefox into Google, and then download for free (choose mac or PC version).

Step 2. Get a Gmail email account.  Not because you will necessarily use it, but it’s a Google account which you need because Google has lots to offer in social media.

Step 3. When you have opened up Firefox, go to the bar up the top to Tools – Add-ons – Get Add-ons and search for the following:

• Feedly
• Power  Twitter
• Install, restart Firefox.

Step 4. – Join and add your profile to Twitter.

Step 5. We’re going to set up Firefox so it automatically opens up the tabs you regularly use. Close down Firefox again, reopen and then in separate tabs open up

1. Feedly
2. Twitter
3. Email provider (if you use something like gmail regularly)
4. Any site/blog you are regularly on
5. Then go to the Firefox Tools, options, and on the main tab click on use current pages (Mac: Preferences, Main, use current pages).  Now every time you open up Firefox the tabs you have selected will open automatically = time saved.

Step 6. Using Feedly
Feedly can be personalised to be set up to read all the sites you want to follow on one page, and you can also post information to social media sites from there.  It saves a lot of time and keeps you up to date.

To set up Feedly:

Sign into feedly using your gmail address and password. Feedly comes preloaded with sites it thinks are interesting for you to read.  You can keep them or delete them in the dashboard section depending on your preference.

In separate tabs open those sites and blogs that you regularly follow, eg say I want to add the Journal of Medical Internet Research to my other sites on feedly

Because you have downloaded feedly, your url toolbar will now have a ‘+f’ sign on those sites you can add to your feedly page.

Click on the +f or the blue square rss feed sign and add site to feedly. Here I am adding it to my other sites, and can chose to add it to categories I have created in Feedly

Within Feedly you can bookmark, twitter and facebook articles from that page without having to leave it. Here I am using it to tweet.

For an excellent recent overview of Feedly see Feed me Feedly

Well done. If you’ve got this far you’ve managed Stage one, and it’s a major one. This is a Big Step Forward.

There are many other sites that can be joined – social book marking sites such as Diigo, StumbleUpon, and also setting up a Facebook page, but if you try and do it all at once it can become overwhelming. This is a great start.