Types of Social Media

Social Media is a very broad term, so there is various different kinds of social media:

* **Social Networking**

Social networking social media focuses on communication with others in somebody's social life. Social networking social media would include websites such as Facebook, where the main focus is adding people you know in real life and communicating to them using "posts" or private messages. College students could benefit from the use of social networking social media such as Facebook because many college courses and the college itself have their own Facebook pages, where lecturers or other departmental staff post relevant information, such as news on college closures or assignments.

* **Media Sharing**

 Media sharing social media focuses on the sharing of data, such as images and video. Media sharing social media would include websites such as Deviantart, where users share created artwork. College students could benefit from the use of media sharing social media when it comes to work involving images and other data, as some assignments depend on the student displaying the capability of legally acquiring images to use in presentations or other academic creations.

* **Discussion Forums**

Discussion forums are a form of social media which focuses on discussion between people, often with their own profiles on the website. Examples of discussions forums include the Tom's Hardware forum, which is where lots of people get technical advice related to electronics such as computers. A college student could benefit from the use of discussion forums because they allow anyone to ask questions anonymously and receive (often) correct answers to their questions by others, which would be very useful if a student for example had a specific question about something they heard about in the class but didn't understand.

* **Book marking and content creation networks**

Book marking and content creation Networks are a kind of social media that revolves around the sharing of content, where "bookmarks" are added to categorize that content. An example of a book marking and content creation network would be Pinterest, where it's very easy to find closely-related but not visually similar images due to the bookmarking of content.

* **Consumer review networks**

 Consumer review networks are a kind of social media which works with the idea of "reviewing" and finding businesses. An example of a consumer review network would be Tripadvisor, where both specific locations and specific businesses are reviewed and given ratings by people who have (usually) been there.

* **Blogging and publishing networks**

 Blogging and publishing networks are a kind of social media which focuses around the publishing of posts by either one person or a few people. An example of a blogging network would be Tumblr, where users create individual blogs and they create, share and repost content.

* **Interest based networks**

 Interest based networks are a kind of social media that focuses on the expression of people's hobbies. An example of an interest based network would be Quora, where users can ask questions relating so specific topics of interest and others. Interest based networks may be useful to students because some of them, such as Quora, provide consistently high-quality answers due to the ability of users to suggest edits to answers and the general expertise in the fields that the people who answer the questions often have.

* **Social shopping networks**

Social shopping networks are simply an integration of social networking into online shopping, an example of social shopping networks would be Facebook integration features in online stores, or the social networking elements found in Ebay. Social shopping networks may be useful to students because social shopping networks often allow buyers to comment on the quality of an item, allowing students to carefully examine and get the best deal out of purchases for items like important course-related books.

* **Sharing economy networks**

Sharing economy networks are a kind of social media that focus on trading of goods and services. An example of a sharing economy network would be Fiverr, where users offer a specific service in exchange for a minimum amount of money as an individual instead of a company. Sharing economy networks could be useful to students for a vast multitude of reasons due to the broadness of the concept; an example of which could be taking online lessons using Fiverr to help understand a particular topic.

* **Anonymous social networks**

Anonymous social networks are unusual because they revolve around the concept of anonymity, which actually allows them to be used for good purposes, such as allowing people to speak freely about things without worry of persecution. Anonymous social networks would be useful to college students because they offer an anonymous way of asking questions which would be difficult to ask if people knew that person.