The phenomenon of social networking became extremely popular with the making of My Space and was originally geared toward the teenage gender.  Realizing its potential for many other age groups, these web sites have begun to grow in popularity by leaps and bounds!  Today there are many social sites available and can be used for many purposes including personal, business, family, promotion, word of mouth advertising and expansion of your network of friends and colleagues.

Most of these sites are similar in that they allow a user to create profiles, demographics, upload files, photos and videos, provide privacy and security and offer many networking tools in the form of chat rooms, blogs, bulletins groups and instant messaging.  In this article we will compare the top five networking sites and the services they have to offer.  Over the next few weeks, we will look at each of these more in depth, and see how each can truly benefit you as you Market Yourself.

1)  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com

Currently rated as number ONE! this site has much to offer.  It reaches out to users internationally, has multi-language abilities, has a full range of help and support documentation and provides an adequate level of security to protect your personal data.  Although the site is not advertisement free, there are no worries at present of pop up windows, viruses or spam when using the site.  The advanced search feature allows the user to find people via name, school, city/state/zip, interests and will even search your current contacts from many popular email applications.

2)  My Space: http://www.myspace.com

Currently used more by the younger aged population, My Space is where it all began!  This site offers custom skins, your own personalized URL, customized code for embedding into your current web site or blog, a full range of support and most of the other standard features.  Although its security is not as good as some of the other sites, My Space has over a million users and is growing every day.

3)  Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/m/signin

Bebo started its fame and fortune in the UK, but is beginning to give some of the other sites a real run for their money!  They take great pride in their security functions although some users have reported those features go a bit overboard.  The customization of profiles seems to be a huge hit offering a ton of skins, drag and drop features and colors and fonts.  Look for Bebo to start popping up in the United States!

4)  Friendster: http://www.friendster.com/

This site is well known all around Asia and is beginning to make its debut in the United States.  Although the site offers many of the standard features, it is lacking in some including the ability to chat with friends, email, participate in groups and enjoy music and games.  One of its unique features deals with photos and allows a user to not only upload photos to their own profiles, but also perform uploads to other friends’ profiles.  Be on the lookout for Friendster to become more and more known as time passes.

5)  Hi 5: http://hi5.com/

Like Friendster, this site does not offer email, instant messaging or chat capabilities, but does have some added perks!  The site has over 70 million members worldwide and is completely advertisement free.  With all the standard features, profile customization, and skins, it is easily navigated.  Some of the downfalls of this site are its poor search engine, lack of support and its dependence on applications to run general tasks.

As you can see, the social networking world is quickly becoming an excellent marketing tool for any freelancer.  Be sure to check in next week, when we will explore ways you can market yourself with these sites and take a deeper look into the necessary steps to successfully use these sites to your advantage.  Happy socializing!