Image is everything. It's not a matter of looking like the most intelligent, cultured, and radical person who ever walked the face of the Earth, it's just a matter of looking like you are and you're already in. That's our theory. It's only more heightened on the internet, especially on social networking sites such as the new Yahoo 360, where users fill out questionnaires, stick pictures of themselves up, and type up a witty biography of themselves to get people to notice them in the hopes of finding a soul mate. Or Kevin Bacon.

Now what about the rest of us without professionally airbrushed headshots? We need to look interesting. Simple. What people fail to realize is that in crafting the perfect social networking profile, there is a subtle meta-game at work. In a world of spilt-second decisions and racial profiling, the best we can do is to look better than the person reading our profile. Our formula for crafting the best social networking profile after the jump.

As the already treacherous social networking landscape gets even trickier with the launch of social networking site to end all social networking sites Yahoo 360, contributing SFist Paolo offers these tips to help you socially network like there's no tomorrow.