IF YOU have some extra time to kill this week, here are three things you can do on social media:Check your Twitter stats, watch Project Alpha and, er, add your mum on Facebook.

Use www.tweetstats.com to find out more information about your Twitter usage.

What’s Tweeting?
If you’re an avid Twitterer like me and have sent out thousands of Tweets over the last couple of years, it might interest you to know that you now have access to certain statistics regarding your Twitter usage.

At www.tweetstats.com, all you need to do is key in your username and it will provide you with several graphs and statistics regarding your usage.
For example, when I did a search on my username (@nikicheong), I discovered that I send out an average of 36 Tweets a day – even though I sent out 1,747 Tweets in April. I can also check out my Tweet density (at what times do I Tweet the most).

Among other data that you can get is which Twitter user you ReTweet the most, and who you reply to frequently.
I’m not sure how this data will affect my Tweeting habits just yet but at least the graphs are colourful!

Bloggers on video
Bloggers often talk about themselves on the blog, so why not do it on camera as well. I was one of the privileged few to be invited as a featured bloggers in this season’s Project Alpha, a reality show on local bloggers. My episodes are currently running (log on to www.projectalpha.com.my or www.dailychilli.com) to watch them, and they feature former Miss Malaysia and actress Elaine Daly, as well as Singaporean blogging sensation Xiaxue (www.xiaxue.sg) during a trip to London.

On Saturday, Cheesie (from www.cheeserland.com) will be in the spotlight on the show, followed by ShaolinTiger, KYspeaks, Ninie Ahmad, Azwan Ali and Klubbkidd.

Mum’s the word
I’m no longer a teenager who lives by my parents’ rules but even I cringed when it was first suggested that social media was a great way for parents to keep tabs on their children.

If this was back in the mid-1990s when the Internet first grew big in Malaysia, I would probably have reacted the same way as many youths these days who often react violently to the idea of adding their parents on Facebook, for example.
Or at least that is what I thought.

Little did I know that youths these days have less of an issue with having mum or dad follow them on Facebook. A recent survey by American consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo found that nearly half – or 48% to be precise – of parents surveyed have added their children on Facebook.
While this survey was done on parents, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that their kids are okay with it, too, considering that they would have to approve their parents’ “Friend request” in the first place.

Retrevo suggests that as a Mother’s Day present, one could add his or her parent on social media sites. I would add my mum if she was on Facebook. Maybe after she watches this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu4zMvE6FH4) from satire news site The Onion, she might want to jump on the bandwagon.
Happy Mother’s Day, mum!

* Starting next week, social media strategist (and self-confessed geek) David Lian will contribute fortnightly in R.AGE’s What The Tweet column, taking on technology, the Internet and social media (in no particular order).