You shouldn't have to write anything personal to tell people who you are.

I suggest starting with your skills and interests. Most people around here (and in any other online community) are mainly interested in knowing what you bring to the conversation. And when you give an opinion, they know what makes your response important.

Next thing is to attach/link to your other public social profiles. For example, if you have Pandora playlist, or Blip.fm account, or twitter, or anything like that, by all means provide a reference to them.

If you are writing stuff on Mahalo Answers, you may also write a question or a thought that can allow you to have discussions around that topic. You know, life, love, music, science, ethics, whatever. So that when users come across your profile, they can start a conversation with you, or if they find you on twitter, they can ping you about it.

I think that'll be a good start. As far as IM icons go, you have several options. Go to interfaceLIFT's icons page (http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/) or go to SmashingMagazine and search for "social icons" or "web 2.0 icons" etc. One example from their site is this (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/10/cheers-a-free-social-icon-set/). They have plenty more options.

Hope this kind of helped you get started :)

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