Social media in the form of online social networks and online bookmarking have grown in popularity in the last five years. But it’s hard to know which free social network is right for you if you haven’t tried all of them. This is why many Internet users find social network reviews valuable. When you read the reviews, though, you may find that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some might fight for their particular choices tooth and claw. That might be because they were ignorant of the options, so they invested all their time without further investigation. Some of those who are emphatic about their choice don’t even know the difference business networking websites, social bookmarking sites and online social networking sites that are primarily there for fun. Many are not aware that there are also social networking sites, like Capazoo, that use micropayments to incentivize users to visit the site and promote it to others.

Many social media users aren’t aware of the variations between one form of social network and another because there is huge amount of cross-over in the platforms. For example, Facebook can be used for business or pleasure. And there are literally tens of thousands of Ning sites, such as Paper Craft Planet, which specialize in narrow niches. These social networking sites are important because they’re created by users and focus on distinct interests. Communities focused on niches, such as book readers, abound. Book lover social communities that feature book reviews, like Booksconnect, cater to bookworms everywhere. A less interactive format that is just as important as online networking sites is social bookmarking, because it opens up new worlds of information storage and retrieval. Social bookmarking sites like Mister Wong allow people to save their favorite bookmarks so they can access them online any time. This platform type is also great for people who conduct searches, because searches are greatly enhanced by keyword tagging. The ability to use keyword tagging also is of value to Web marketers, because backlinks result from the use of bookmarks. A single social bookmarking link isn’t that meaningful yet when a site has many of them, it can change the amount of search engine traffic it receives. Also, like with Propeller, if a blog post is entered on one of these sites, it can often rank high in Google if the person who submitted it understands how to research keyword tags and has entered the listing properly.

Confusing the issue even more are sites like Yahoo Buzz, which feature both online social networking and bookmarking. These sites are used for bookmarking but they also have legions of people who frequent them for marketing or socializing. Business and personal contacts galore are just waiting to be discovered on these sites and blog posts featured on these social networking sites have the potential to rank well in Google and other search engines. This makes these type of sites genuine gold to Internet marketers.