I use the link in your profile page to make decisions that your existing interaction level can’t answer. Others who are newer to social media use it to decide your trustworthiness and online value, or how interesting you are. Following someone has a bit of a cost to it as far as time – the landing page you link to in your profile let’s new followers know you are worth their time.

Many people panic when I tell them they need a link to a landing page. They don’t want to start a blog or host a web site. They don’t want to sell products online or fuss with a CMS system. They prefer more lightweight interaction online and don’t see the point in committing at that level. You know what? That is totally fine. Even so, you still need a place people can go to see another facet of who you are.

So how do you have a social media landing page if you don’t want to have a blog or web site? That’s easy – cross link to your other social media profiles, or to a social content site or social network instead.

Social content is probably the best way to handle the lack of a dedicated web site or blog. If you have a Flickr account for your photos, a Qik channel for short videos from your phone, or even something like an Utterli profile where you record your old, angst-ridden teen poetry, link to it.

If you don’t generate social content, you should. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s often free. It takes less time than a blog or web site, and it is maintained by someone else. You get a profile page in a very no fuss, no muss manner, meaning that updating feels more like play but is still effective in getting what I like to call “snackable content” out there for the masses to consume, discuss and pass along (with credit and link backs, is the hope).

If you are strictly a social network participant and have no desire (or time, in some cases) to generate any kind of social content, no matter how small, you can still make one of your social network profiles into your landing page. Just tweak the content a bit to make sure it reflects a wider amount of your personality or accomplishments, then link to the profile.

To make a FaceBook profile your landing page, you need to make the permissions on the profile public. That’s a scary thing for some people, and not without risk. If that makes you uncomfortable, you can create a fan page for yourself or your company and link there instead, thus controlling access to your private life.

Just because MySpace has lost its luster recently doesn’t mean it isn’t a great landing page, especially if you are a band/musician. The custom URL feature makes it easy, and you can upload links, content, videos, commentary and more with ease, keeping your content interesting for visitors from other sites, like Twitter.

Don’t overlook some of the lesser known or niche social networks either (iMeem, Strands, MOG, LinkedIn or even sites like FriendFeed). However you choose to get another side of your personality or your company out there, that link in your profile is key to getting more response to your social media activity. Layers are vital. Show yours off.

Last.FM got my attention first. I installed the small widget that “talks” to the Last.FM site (called scrobbling by Last.FM). At first, all went well, and it always updated my music based on what songs I was playing and downloading. It had recommendations for me whenever I visited the web site, and I could customize my profile and seek out other people with the same music tastes. I was loving it.

That’s when it started having issues. I first noticed the issues on the MySpace widget I had installed – 9 times out of 10 the widget wasn’t working. So I checked the sidebar widget I had on one of my logs. Same thing. I made sure the program on my computer was working (it was), and decided to monitor it for a few days. Over the course of several days, the Last.FM widget was down about 80% of the time. Since displaying what I was listening to was the main reason I’d installed Last.FM, and the feature I was most interested in using, I decided to try a new program.

I went to MOG and grabbed their version of Last.FM’s “scrobbler” program. Both were equally simple to install – just double click the icon on the desktop and it places the little widget right into your System Preferences dashboard (I have a MacBook). As it installs it asks you to allow it access to your iTunes, and you are done. Both programs installed the same way.

Right away, I liked MOG better than Last.FM. Last.FM caused some lag time on my system (perhaps it is a larger program – I don’t know the reason) where MOG had no impact on my system at all. It runs quietly in the background, interfering with nothing. I had spent some time on Last.FM’s web site, but never really got into the social aspects of it. Finding friends on Last.FM simply wasn’t as intuitive to me, although overall their design is more attractive than MOG.

On MOG’s site, however; I find that I play all the time. I love the way they have set up the user pages to place everything from blog ability to song uploads and sharing right at your fingertips. I find myself playing around there quite a bit more than is wise considering all the work I have to do on a daily basis. In fact, the blog feature of MOG is one of the things I like best about it. Sure, I already have several blogs of my own, but none are dedicated to music. With MOG I can write about and share what I’m listening to. It even allows you to embed the shared music on your other blogs, and link to pages where users can buy the albums that go with the tracks – genius!

As far as the widgets on my Myspace , FaceBook and blog sidebars , they have been up and running 9 times out of ten. The few times they have been down, MOG has placed an automatically generated error message that states the server is being maintained, so your readers don’t see blank space or get the eternally spinning wheel or hourglass. One drawback of MOG is load time on the widgets. MOG does not cause my computer to drag, but it does occasionally cause the sidebar widget to drag. I can only assume that happens in times of server overload. It would be nice if MOG offered a way to have the widget default to the server maintenance message if their widget takes longer than a minute to load.

Overall, I liked the features and reliability better with MOG than with Last.FM. If you don’t need the blog, or like the design better at Last.FM, you may make a different choice. Not only that, new social music sites arrive often in Web 2.0 land, so you could find a program you like better than either of them. That’s the beauty of Web 2.0 for creatives – options.

My original version found at Profy site