Which social networking site is right for me?

Getting into social networking can be scary especially when you’re not even sure which social networking site is best for you. This article takes a quick look at several of the major social networking sites out there so that you can quickly decide if you think any of them would be worthwhile participating in. Regardless of what we say here, the best way to determine which social networking site you join is to ask your friends and family what they use. Chances are you’ll get the most out of a site that they use as well.

Facebook.com (www.facebook.com)

Facebook is the world’s largest social networking site and is a place on the web where you can “find” people you know in real life and communicate with them whether that be by sending them updates about what you’re doing or reading or by sharing photos of your latest holiday or birthday party.

Facebook has over 250 million users and of these over 100 million log into the site at least once a day. This gives you some idea of how useful many people find the site, so if you’re considering dipping your toe in the water Facebook is probably the place to start.

Twitter (www.twitter.com)

Twitter is a social networking site in the sense that it allows you follow (or be followed) by anyone whose comments (restricted to 140 characters) you find interesting. It also allows you to give the world updates about what you’re doing at any particular time and is particularly popular amongst business people and news organisations who want to stay up-to-date with the latest happenings around the world in their particular area of expertise.

Twitter is not as easy to get into as Facebook and to make the most of it you really want to install a third party application like Tweet Deck (see our article on ways to make twitter useful).

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)

Linked in is squarely targeted at professionals and can be thought of as a network for your professional life. Whether it is contacts you’ve made at different jobs, old bosses or employees, LinkedIn gives you a way to keep track of them all online. You may have noticed that that many people are starting to include their LinkedIn addresses on their business cards. This is because, for professional purposes, it provides a great way of quickly and easily keeping track of your professional history.

MySpace (www.myspace.com)

Before Facebook rose as the social networking king MySpace was very popular. These days, however, it seems to only be popular with a much younger demographic and musicians who are able to make use of the excellent artist features provided (for example the ability to embed a music player easily onto your profile page). If this is you, we’d recommend giving it a go, but if it’s not we’d suggest trying the networks above first.