Social media in the form of online social networks and online social bookmarking are incredibly popular these days. But it’s hard to know which social media platform is right for you if you haven’t tried all of them. That’s why so many Internet users find reviews of these type of sites so helpful.

When reading the reviews, however, you might be shocked at how people’s points of view vary widely Many folks defend their choice of online social networking sites vehemently. That may be due, however, to being unaware of all the available options, so they got hooked on one site without really knowing what’s out there. Many who are adamant about defending one site aren’t aware of the variations Online social networks , like LibraryThing, have everything from chats, book reviews and online bookshelves.

Many social media users aren’t aware of the variations between social networks because the features and uses overlap. For example, HubPages can be used for business or pleasure. Thousands of user-created free networking communities have sprung up all over the Internet, such as papercraftplanet.ning . These sites are really where the rubber hits the road when it comes to social networking due to their emphasis on people’s niche interests. Communities focused on interests, such as book readers, abound. social networking is online social bookmarking, because it opens up new worlds of information storage and retrieval. Sites that feature social bookmarking, such as Mister Wong, allow logged-in users to save their online bookmarks for free. This platform type is also great for people who conduct searches, because tagging is allowed Tagging also makes social bookmarking sites of great interest to online marketers, who use them to garner backlinks for their blog posts and Web sites. One social bookmark doesn’t really mean anything in terms of backlinks but in aggregate, they matter. As with BloggingZoom, when a link is posted on these web properties, it can often rank high in Google if the person who submitted it understands how to research keyword tags and has entered the listing correctly.

A less interactive format that is just as important as social networking is social bookmarking, which has become a standard for people who work and play on the Web. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us allow people to save their favorite bookmarks so they can access them online any time. These sites are also powerful for people who are searching for information, because keyword tags that allow for easy searching can be assigned to each bookmark. This ability also makes these sites tremendous for Internet marketers, because they know they will lead to backlinks for their sites. The individual links aren’t that meaningful yet when a site has many of them, it can change the amount of search engine traffic it receives. And with sites such as Digg, if a URL is posted on one of these bookmarking sites that has good pagerank, it can often achieve high search engine rankings if the keywords were researched and the listing was entered correctly.

The boundaries are made even more murky with sites like Yahoo Buzz, which allow social networking and social bookmarking. They are used for bookmarking but also are equally powerful for marketing and socializing. You can make a lot of friends on these sites and as a bonus, material placed on them oftentimes ranks well in Google. These powerful benefits are just some of the reasons that people who make their livings online love social media sites.