Online and In Tune

The pros and cons of social networking sites

by Allison Tyra

It may be a small world, and, if so, social networking sites are only making it smaller.

Using these sites can have benefits and disadvantages, both personally and professionally.

Most successful free networking sites have a niche of some sort. MySpace is a "fun" site that appeals to a younger audience, focusing largely on music, movies and other forms of entertainment.

Originally designed solely for Harvard students, now only one-third of Facebook users are composed of college students; 35 and older is the fastest-growing user demographic. The most basic, Twitter, could perhaps be most aptly described as a personal ticker tape, with constant updates -- "twitters" of 140 characters or less -- of everything that's going on at any given moment, whether the tweeter is the teen down the street or Miley Cyrus.

MomsLikeMe.com is, as the title suggests, geared toward mothers. While businesses and other organizations have begun utilizing these as well, LinkedIn is strictly a professional site, compared to others that are geared more toward interpersonal relationships.

Webmaster Kim Carlson of St. Louis Shakespeare uses Facebook and Twitter pages for the company, making announcements on both and sharing photos and events through Facebook.

"Twitter allows us to get quick messages out to people," Carlson says, including fans, media and other venues. Both are great for getting consumer feedback as well, she says.

With shows like "The One-Hour Lord of the Rings Trilogy: LIVE!" Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre is St. Louis Shakespeare's lighthearted program, "making you LOL since 1996," according to the Web site.

"We're not all Shakespeare, all the time," Carlson says.

Because of the different focus, MSMT has a MySpace page, whereas SLS does not. There are Facebook and Twitter pages for both, however. Carlson says she also prefers the lack of clutter on Facebook, compared to the proverbial "bells and whistles" on MySpace. The sites make the organization seem more personal and less forbidding, Carlson says, especially to attract a younger audience.

"We're not just an institution," she says. "We're people running it because we love it."

Facebook has more than 250 million users, about half of whom log on at least once a day; the average user has 120 friends. LinkedIn has 43 million users. The fastest growing -- at the moment -- is Twitter, showing 1,382 percent growth from February 2008 to February 2009; its largest demographic is 35- to 49-year-olds, which make up about 40 percent of its users. Although user reports vary, MySpace has roughly 125 million users.

The Saint Louis Zoo posts videos on its "ZooTube" channel on YouTube, which public relations director Janet Powell says is one of the site's most-watched channels for a nonprofit organization.

The Internet can be a great way to connect or stay in contact with people who live far away; 70 percent of Facebook users are outside the United States. Facebook can be translated into 64 different languages, and LinkedIn offers English, Spanish, French and German for its members in 200 different countries and territories. And with programs like Skype that offer free audio/visual communication through the Internet, you can speak with people anywhere in the world in real time for free.

There's also the question of how much time you use up. Worldwide, more than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day. In fact, time is one of the only costs to businesses that use these sites, time employees spend updating pages, creating event pages and responding to visitor posts.

Of course, unofficial fan pages on sites like Facebook can create confusion when an organization creates page to officially represent itself. Powell says the zoo is considering creating a Facebook page, but currently, the only "Saint Louis Zoo" page on that site is unofficial. There could also be issues if the unofficial site has incorrect information.

Many sites exist for the purpose of sharing a specific passion. Flickr allows members to share their photographs; YouTube is dedicated to videos. DeviantART describes itself as a "community of artists and those devoted to art" -- digital, street and body art, photography, film and animation, and traditional media like drawing, sculptures and collages. File-sharing sites like Limewire allow people to share music online, and iTunes sells single songs to users so they can pick and choose what they like, rather than having to buy a whole CD.

No matter what you might be looking for on the Internet, sites like these can help you connect with interesting people with the same passions, business or goals.

"We're no longer remote. We're right here," Carlson says.

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