Social networking has become the norm with each person spending a great part of their day online.
Among social networking applications, the most famous and useful are the ones that you can message other people with, thus effectively remaining connected with all those you wish to be connected with.
Among these are mainstream applications that the whole world knows about. Then there are others that are specific to a region and used mostly by the people within that region.
One such application is the Kik Messenger, more commonly known as just Kik. This application has gained popularity in North America and is fast becoming one of the most fascinating social networking applications of all time.
We bet you are interested in it by now, but there are a few tips and tricks that newbies should keep in mind before they start using Kik in order to be on the same page as those who have been using it for a long time.
Tips for New Kik Users
Going through these five tips can save you a lot of hassle since you are only beginning to traverse the uncharted waters and you need a guide to ensure your journey as a Kik user is smooth.
Here we will be listing the tips you need to keep in mind to help you ease yourself into the world of Kik.
1. Not giving your phone number is preferable
If you haven’t made your Kik profile yet, you need to know a few things for when you actually do. The best part about Kik is that it is not mandatory for you to give your phone number.
It can just as easily track your location with your IP address, so unnecessarily giving away more information is not a requirement.
There is, however, an option for you to give your number, so if you are someone who wishes to remain anonymous, you shouldn’t utilize this option.
The only thing that is displayed is your Kik username, your profile picture, and your display name. Your phone number not being up for public view means that you will not be stalked and harassed by people who might call you up otherwise.
As it stands, it is safest for you to keep your phone number to yourself and not endanger yourself to harassers since dealing with them is not only costly but also time-consuming.
To summarize, you should avoid all that hassle by only giving away necessary information that is enough for your friends to identify you easily.
2. Read Kik messages without letting others know
There are often times when you wish you could read a message without being pestered for a reply because the sender knows you have read it. Like a lot of social networking applications, Kik offers the same feature whereby one can see who has read the messages and who has not.
With this feature, it has become increasingly hard for people to answer at their own pace since the people who message them expect fast replies.
This is not just an issue with a few people – this is a problem all of us face at some point when we do not feel like answering immediately to messages. You need not fret, however, as there is a way to make sure you can read messages without being found out.
All you need to do when you receive a message that you do not wish to read is to not open it up in the application. Then, you need to turn on the airplane mode on your phone and read the message.
Once you have read the message, you can turn the airplane mode off. This way, no one will know that you have read the message. This is, by far, the most effective way to ensure your peace of mind as well as others’.
3. Verify your friends’ identities
As with any other social networking applications, there is no shortage of fake users on Kik. What you need to keep in mind is that most of these fake users are ‘fake’ for a reason. They usually aren’t up to any good. Hence, you must avoid them at all costs.
These fake users are not who they claim to be, despite the fact that they may put up information that might mislead you into thinking that they are really your friend.
The real question here is, how are you supposed to know if the account holder is genuine or a fake? There is a simple way to do that. Take note that this method is not a hundred percent accurate, but it works well enough for the most part.
What you need to do is download a profile lookup reversal application. These applications scan the internet and sift through it to find the same profile.
The trick here to identify fake identities from authentic ones is to see how many other places the image appears. If it does not appear anywhere else, the chances are that it is an authentic person.
In the case of it appearing on other places, however, you would be better off avoiding contact with this profile.
4. Bots are great entertainment
It is not uncommon for you to have no one to talk to if all your friends are either too busy or offline to reply to your messages. In this case, how are you supposed to spend your time?
How are you going to keep yourself entertained until your friends deem it necessary to reply? Well, on Kik, you do not have to worry about getting bored because you can get yourself a bot to talk to.
These bots provide endless hours of entertainment, and they ask for nothing in return. Basically, they are a source of free, quality entertainment.
Beware, however, because some of these bots are programmed to be advertising tools and nothing more. If you engage with bots of that sort, you are bound to be bored and nothing else.
It is these types of bots that you have to do your best to avoid. There are numerous bots that can hold a decent conversation with you.
To have a look at them, all you need to do is go the Kik Bot Shop where you will find a variety of bots to choose from. Based on your likes and dislikes, you can choose the bot you wish to talk to.
Or you can just check out our recommendations and pick one of the top 5 Kik bots out there.
5. Back up Kik messages
As someone new to Kik, you need to realize the importance of backing up all of your important data. Smartphones and computers are not entirely immune to viruses, no matter how secure they are.
It comes as no surprise that people often lose the data on these devices as a result of a rogue, malicious program.
With this thought in mind, you must have realized the importance of backing up your phone and its data. This is no different for Kik messages – they need to be backed up as soon as possible.
You can also choose not to back up your messages if you are not inclined to read prior ones at all. However, if you do want to keep all your messages someplace safe, you should activate the backup option in your Kik application.
You can install a third-party application to do it for you such as Dr. Fone. These applications help copy data to your PC so that in the case of your losing your phone, you will still have all the data.
Conclusion
Kik is an application that does things a bit differently than other applications of its sort. The basic features are the same, but there are some aspects in which it differs from the others, such as the interactive bots one could talk to if one is feeling exceptionally bored.
As is the case with all new things, you need some sort of guidance to go about using the applications so that you neither end up embarrassing yourselves nor do you feel left out of the social bubble of Kik users who have been using the application for a long time.
If all the people who are completely new to the fascinating world of Kik follow these tips from day one, they will find themselves fitting right in and avoiding uncomfortable situations such as extreme boredom, a legion of stalkers, or even pissed off friends.
You need to make your life sail as smoothly as possible while using Kik, so it is advisable that all of these tips and tricks be given the attention they deserve.
Sticky situations such as losing all your Kik message data because you forgot to install a backup for it can easily be avoided if you take a few of the precautions mentioned above. This way, you will not end up losing a significant amount of data in the process.