Admit it: You signed up for Twitter and haven’t used it since, and your Facebook feed is filled with people you vaguely remember from high school. Even so, don’t overlook social media. This new world plays directly to our strengths as communicators and connectors. You just need our easy cheat sheet to make it work for you.

You’ve probably heard about Google+, Instagram and Pinterest, but what about Path or Tout? It seems that every day another hot new social media platform is begging you to sign on. Meanwhile, you barely have time to check your Facebook account or answer the piled-up email invites to connect on LinkedIn.

As tempting as it may seem, avoiding these online portals may mean missed opportunities. The social media landscape abounds with tales of moms using it to find jobs, promote accomplishments and even plan birthday parties for 5-year-olds. If you haven’t already, it’s time you joined their ranks. Whatever stage you’re at, here’s the scoop on how you can harness the power of the hottest social networks.

Facebook
What it’s for: Connecting, sharing advice and staying top of mind with friends and colleagues
Who it’s for: Everybody
Time demands: Check in every day or two
The bad rap: It’s for bragging about your kids to your elementary school classmates
The new twist: It’s for networking with your elementary school classmates’ contacts

The ultimate—and most popular—social network, Facebook is expected to grow to 1 billion active users this year. But if you use Mark Zuckerberg’s baby merely to post vacation snaps, you’re missing the potential to “leverage your personal connections for your professional ones,” says Stacey Ferguson, founder of justicefergie.com and chief curator of beblogalicious.com.

You can sort your contacts into groups by family, work or even more refined distinctions, then post different information to each group. If you want to stay top of mind with former bosses or potential business partners, make a point of liking or commenting on their posts, advises Amy Gittelman, 45, a senior account director at MyWebGrocer in New York City and mom of Emmett, 7. “I might ‘like’ something just to have them know Amy Gittelman is still out there and alive,” she says. “Otherwise you can lose contact with the people you’ve been in touch with for a long time.”

Lisa Smith Rodriguez, 32, even found a new job through Facebook. The Burke, VA, mom of Yasmeen, 7, and Joselyn, 1, was wrapping up maternity leave and dreading a two-hour round-trip commute when she saw a post on an open telecommuting position from Facebook friend Jennifer Folsom, a partner at momentum resources, a boutique staffing firm.

“I commented back saying, ‘I’m interested, what else can you tell me?’ ” Lisa recalls. That led to an interview and a job offer. “It’s worked out beautifully. It has given me so much flexibility,” she says.

LinkedIn
What it’s for: Networking, job hunting, showcasing your professional accomplishments
Who it’s for: Everyone who works
Time demands: Check in weekly; more if you’re actively job hunting
The bad rap: It’s boring
The new twist: It’s a treasure trove of industry intelligence

Consider LinkedIn your online Rolodex and resume rolled into one. Every professional should take the 5 to 10 hours needed to sign up at this business-related site, upload a complete profile and start building a network of connections. Once you hit 50 connections, you’ll begin to experience the power of second- and third-order contacts, says Nicole Williams, LinkedIn’s connection director and a New York City–based author and career expert.

LinkedIn is most effective when you make connections and tend your network continuously—not just when you’re job hunting. Ask for recommendations to burnish your profile, and remind people how you know them when you ask to connect with them. Be sure to upload a professional profile picture, look for typos and align your listed accomplishments with opportunities you’d like to pursue. Stefania Pomponi Butler, co-founder of blog network Clever Girls Collective, recommends upgrading to a paid account (from $20/month), so you can find out who has viewed your profile. If a recruiter for a former employer checks you out, for instance, it can present an opportunity to reach out to that individual.

Follow companies that intrigue you, to keep up with their news and see when people join or leave them, Williams suggests. Join LinkedIn groups related to your field, and participate in the Q&As to establish your professional reputation.

Laurie Baldwin, 43, a senior marketing manager, answered a question posed on LinkedIn by a hiring manager at her dream employer, a Fortune 50 company. The manager responded that, judging by her Linkedin profile, she’d be a good fit for a job he was looking to fill. They had an unofficial phone conversation, followed by an interview, job offer and relocation package within just a few weeks.

The hiring manager and his vice president had a greater comfort level because they could see on LinkedIn that Laurie had worked with mutual contacts. “They could reach out to anyone I had worked with,” says Laurie, a mom of four: Kit, 24, Daniel, 21, Chris, 17, and Ricky, 12.

Beyond job hunting, LinkedIn is invaluable to anyone in sales, marketing or communications because of the deep tools for understanding how organizations and individuals fit together. When Amy joined MyWebGrocer, she was trying to get a meeting with a brand manager at a major consumer packaged goods company. By searching LinkedIn, she found out that person was connected to someone she used to manage in a previous job. Amy asked for an introduction and just a few days later heard from the brand manager about scheduling a meeting.

“Twenty-two years ago, I’d go to a building and go to every floor and knock on every door,” Amy recalls. “It was backbreaking. now there are so many tools, you can’t do anything without them.”

Twitter
What It’s for: News, info and connecting with industry thought leaders
Who It’s for: Content creators and anyone comfortable with a public forum
Time demands: Check in two or three times a day
The bad rap: It’s what you had for breakfast
The new twist: It’s what Sheryl Sandberg reads over breakfast

Twitter is perhaps the most ridiculed and least understood social network. But given its 500 million registered users, you ignore the microblogging service at your peril.

“Twitter is good for working moms because you can get everything in bite-sized pieces. You could pop onto Twitter and see what people are talking about, what’s trending, what are the hot topics of the day,” says Ferguson, likening it to an online cocktail party.

Anyone who is creating content—whether articles, photos, art, videos, graphics, even campaign messages—can use Twitter to bolster her reputation, audience and personal brand. It’s also an invaluable tool for casually connecting to leaders in your field.

Cheryl Dickison, 45, a vice president of sales at digital marketing firm R2integrated, follows chief marketing officers on Twitter in order to get to know them and potentially cultivate them as clients. Not only does she retweet and comment on their tweets, she also gains valuable insight into their personalities, concerns and challenges. “So many people try to use Twitter to establish themselves as a thought leader in marketing,” says Cheryl, mom of Andrew, 16, Erica 15, and Will, 13. “I’ve been able to become friends with people through Twitter, so now we direct-message each other instead of email. It allows me to concisely communicate with them in a fashion that rises above the noise.”

You can also use this online service to get a large company’s attention when traditional customer service avenues fail. Jill Berry, 47, a blogger and marketer in Woodbine, MD, was left without a rental car on a trip to the UK, thanks to a Hertz snafu. Six weeks later, having received no response to her customer complaint, she tweeted about her displeasure. Within an hour, she received a response and was directed to send her claim to a dedicated email address. After some back-and-forth, she received $1,400 to reimburse her family—which includes Julia, 16, Jessica, 13, and James, 9—for their transportation expenses.

Pinterest
What it’s for: Showcasing visual content as well as bookmarking recipes, crafts, travel and other information
Who it’s for: Visually oriented professionals, in such fields as product and home design, photography or architecture; scrapbook-loving moms
Time demands: Your call, but set a timer on this addictive network
The bad rap: It’s for competitive homemaking (think grilled cheese sandwiches shaped like ice cream cones)
The new twist: It makes you look as creative as Martha Stewart without the angst

A cyber-scrapbooking site that took the media world by surprise earlier this year, Pinterest surpassed LinkedIn to become the third most popular social network after Facebook and Twitter, according to Experian Marketing Services. On the site, you create as well as follow different “boards” around different topics, such as food, fashion or family. Then you “pin” bookmarks to the board for future reference, planning help and inspiration. (You can even follow your favorite working mother magazine!)

Beyond personal use, you can use Pinterest for business card ideas, industry research and infographics, and smartphone accessories, says Kelby Carr, founder of blog site Type-A Parent and author of Pinterest for Dummies and Pinterest Marketing for Dummies. “The possibilities are only limited to what you can share that has imagery,” Carr says.

If you belong to a professional association, you could pin members on a board, notes Ferguson, predicting that by the time this article is published, people will have discovered new business uses for the platform. “Anybody who works in a visual medium or is creating visual content has a business case to be involved in Pinterest,” says Kim Moldofsky, president of Mom Impact, a Chicago-based social media marketing organization, who blogs at reluctantrenovator.com.

The real danger in Pinterest lies in its endless and addictive nature. “The key for any of these social networks is figuring out your motivations and involvement,” Moldofsky advises. “If you try to be everywhere, that’s just going to lead to burnout. It’s really about finding the sites that are best for you.”

Even More Social Ties
YouTube
Key for public outreach. Share videos here of your professional and media appearances—or those of leaders in your corporation.

Instagram
Like Pinterest, Instagram appeals to visually oriented people and professions. You can share everything from photos and art to graphics or visual policy/corporate messages.

Google+
Some call it the most popular social network that nobody’s using. As weighted to men as Pinterest is to women, it can easily be used to organize groups of people and even brainstorm online through hangouts.

Blogging
It only takes 10 minutes to create a free blog on a consumer-friendly platform like WordPress or Blogger. A blog can establish you as a subject matter expert, but be ready to sustain the blogging pace you set at the beginning—there’s no turnoff like a blog that hasn’t been updated in a year.

Tumblr
Even simpler to update than a blog, Tumblr is an easy way to display a portfolio of work for writers, academics, photographers, artists, graphic designers or other content creators.

Foursquare
This location-based social network facilitates retail deals and on-the-spot connections in person, with anyone from a friend at the playground to a fellow conference-goer.

Industry-specific networks
Whether it’s the We Teach network for schoolteachers or the Working Mother message boards, you can find any number of social networks for professionals in your industry or stage of life.

Three New Networks to Watch
Path
Possibly the most private online network, Path connects family, friends and other closed groups. You can use it 
to both coordinate playdates and connect 
to an industry alliance.

Tout
This service lets you share 15-second clips 
of video you shot on a smartphone. Anything with Alison Sweeney, Dr. Oz and Erin Andrews has something going for it.

Aurasma
Described as bringing the virtual and real worlds together, Aurasma lets you create your own “aura”—a piece of video, audio or other content—that can be fixed to a geographic location. Then friends or fans can retrieve that aura later. No, we don’t get it either.

Social Media for Grown-ups (or how not to get fired over a tweet)

Don’t let fear keep you from participating. Once you get your toes wet in social media, it will make more sense.

Give as much as you get, whether that’s praise, credit or simply sharing another person’s post, tweet or content.

Don’t neglect the real world. Put away your smartphone for your in-person friends and family or the chance to meet a LinkedIn contact for coffee.

Only write something you’d share with your boss and Grandma. Personal updates lend authenticity, but remember that anything digital can be forwarded.

Understand privacy settings and who could potentially view your posts. And don’t be creepy yourself—no stalking that industry thought leader!

Ask your kids for permission before you post anything personal about them.

Be careful about your in-person security with check-ins for location-based platforms like Foursquare and Facebook.

Prioritize and be intentional about how you spend your time, so the media works for you instead of vice versa.

The Business of Being Social
Sandy Carter’s title says it all: VP of Social Business Evangelism for IBM. In her new book, Get Bold, Carter describes the three characteristics of a social business:

Engaged: A social business connects people to expertise.

Transparent: A social business is always learning, and therefore believes there should be no boundaries between experts inside the company and experts in the marketplace.

Nimble: A social business leverages these social networks to speed up business, gaining real-time insight to make quicker and better decisions.