Someone in my local party approached me and asked matter of factly, what do I need to keep in touch with social networking without getting overwhelmed? I thought about this and thought that while some of us just do everything, what are the top five platforms that conservatives can't go without?

1. Facebook.com

A good platform for groups, causes, and friends. It is also broad in the use by members, unlike MySpace, and doesn't attract nearly as many "spammers."

2. Twitter.com

Even IF you never want to tweet, the ability to follow major players in the conservative world AND actually coorespond with many of them is outstanding. In fact, put that together with the outstanding links and research by some groups like #tcot or #techgop and it is a social networking package combined with news and research.

3. YRNetwork.com

Ok, even if you are not a Young Republican, you need to at least take a look at what Moshe Starkman has done on his own with his own money. Great platform, constant updates, and the functionality of connecting with YRs nationwide is indespensible.

4. Flickr.com

A really great service for photo sharing. Whether through your website, or through social networking, an indespensible service that provides easy use and sharing of photos that are important to you as well as seeing photos of friends or random people on flickr as well.

5. StumbleUpon.com

So, you come upon a conservative website that you love, what do you do? You click a thumbs up button that you have downloaded on your toolbar, and now your friends and like minded strangers have the ability to stumble on that site you selected. I know that there are other services out their that do similar things. Delicious.com, Digg, and technorarti, being among them, my favorite is SU. However, you need at least one of these to make a difference!