Social Networks Assignment

Initially I chose a social networking site called “MediaSite.” It is for professionals in the marketing/advertising sphere, and I thought it would complement my other class’s work nicely and help keep me abreast of what is going on in the online marketing world. The site offers articles on various online marketing subjects. As soon as I signed up, I got inundated with update emails from different topics, but most of them were just the articles that were already available on the homepage (I quickly turned off the email option in my account). Then I read one of the blogs/articles written by a member of the site, and not only was it completely unprofessional, but it had nothing to do with marketing. The comments that were written below it included personal attacks. I have decided not to return to the site unless it is to withdraw my membership.

The next site that I signed up for was much better: BooksConnect (http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/booksconnect/). It is made for writing professionals to connect with each other. It offers events by location as well as material by new authors. The site sells books as well. I checked out their “Horror and ghost stories” link and the offerings were slim, as they usually are for a genre that is not taken seriously (even by its own authors much of the time). The site could be a good place for me to get my name out, as that is a crucial part of the writing world (there is a place to post blogs and articles as well as an inquiries for submissions to publish link), but unfortunately, the site is based out of the UK and most users will probably be based in the wrong location for me to actually get much out of it. I did appreciate that the site did not ask for my picture when setting up my profile – it shouldn’t matter what I look like on a professional networking site. As far as what I want the site to say about me, it would be a good place to showcase some of my writing and possibly advertise my editing services. It would be for my personal professional use as opposed to my job professional use, if that makes sense.

The site is clean and easy to use. I like the search engine better than Amazon.com’s, and Amazon has so many ads and links on its pages that I get overwhelmed and annoyed pretty quickly. I probably won’t use this site much, but it gives me hope to keep looking for something similar based out of the U.S.