The Big Three online networks – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – realize this, and over the past few months have created or beefed up beefed up journalist resource pages on their respective sites.

Here’s a quick look at the journalist resources each offers:

1. Twitter is the last of the big networks to create a journalist resource guide, Twitter for Newsrooms. You can also follow the official Twitter for Newsroom hashtag, #TfN. Twitter for Newsrooms has 4 sections:

• #Report – Includes tips on search, finding sources and using Twitter’s mobile app.
• #Engage – Includes a glossary of common Twitter terms, suggestions for effective tweeting with examples of how some high profile journalists (Katie Couric, Melissa Bell) use the service, and how to customize your profile so you’re easy to find.
• #Publish - Information on Twitter add-ons you can use for a variety of purposes, such as embedding your tweet stream into a WordPress blog; downloadable logos (great for blog posts), and rules for how to display the Twitter logo in print, online or on air.
• #Extra – On deadline, can’t get Twitter to work or need other help? This is the place to come for media, technical and other assistance. It’s also the place media organizations can find third-party Twitter apps to help them do content curation and moderation.

2. Facebook earlier this year hired Mashable’s former community manager Vadim Lavrusik to act as the company’s journalist program manager. Lavrusik has written posts on media industry blogs, including this one on Harvard’s NeimanLab blog about how journalists can better use Facebook. Other resources on the site include:

• Press Room – Includes links to company press releases and the official Facebook blog.
• Contacts – Includes downloadable logos and images; and forms for interview requests and a PR contact email address (press@fb.com), though no names or phone numbers.
• Subscribe to Lavrusik’s Facebook feed – Because he regularly shares tips for using the service, I’d also suggest subscribing to his Facebook feed.

3. LinkedIn has had a journalist resource page for some time – and for a long time shared a post I wrote about how journalists can use LinkedIn. The company reorganized its journalists resource page in recent months, no doubt in anticipation of the additional reporters who started covering the company after it went public. The new LinkedIn Press Center features:

• LinkedIn for Journalists Group – Join this LinkedIn group for journalists to read company news and share tips on using the service with other reporters.
• Resources – LinkedIn’s public relations staff has compiled a list of suggestions for how journalists can use the service to follow trends, find sources including crowdsource, tie their LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, follow industry news and more.
• Getting past “No comment.” – Here’s an interesting tip I’d never thought about before, shared by the company’s publicists: “If you’re looking for background info or comment, LinkedIn Company Pages will show you current and former employees and how you’re connected to them. LinkedIn Advanced People Search can also help. Type a name into the “Company” field and select “Past” on the drop down menu underneath.”

You can find out more about how journalists, freelancers and other writers can use LinkedIn in writer Susan Johnston’s new book, LinkedIn and Lovin It, which will be out next week. (I’ll update this post with the link once the book is published.)

Here are other posts I’ve written on how writers can use social networks:

•  New ways to uses LinkedIn to find story sources
• Link your WordPress, Six Apart blogs to your LinkedIn profile
•  How to use Facebook to promote your writing business
•  How not to out yourself on Facebook
• Is it OK to friend your editor on Facebook?
• A writer’s guide to getting the most out of Twitter
• The use and abuse of Twitter to flog your blog
• When one Twitter account isn’t enough (TwiTip guest post)
• 10 keys to hosting a successful Twitter chat

Is it OK to post a link to that killer story you wrote for Ladies Home Journal on Twitter more than once – an hour?

Does memorizing the LinkedIn profile of an editor you’d like to pitch constitute stalking?

Is it OK to friend your editor on Facebook?

All humor aside, since social networks have become such an integral part of freelancers’ daily work life, it’s easy to forget some people – including editors – still use them just for fun.

When it comes to social networks, it’s important to look before you leap. And when it comes to connecting with editors or potential editors, that means looking at how they’re using social networks and acting accordingly. If an editor you’re dying to work for is on Facebook but only uses it for friends and family, don’t go there. But if the same editor is on LinkedIn and has specifically listed “Career opportunities,” “Job inquiries” or “Getting back in touch” in their LinkedIn profile, it’s a clear sign to use the service to introduce yourself.

Linda Formichelli has lots more to say about this in a post called Connecting with editors on social media on The Renegade Writer blog for freelancers. If you read closely you’ll see yours truly is one of the writers interviewed in the piece.