[stylist] Info on Sites

[Neil Butters]

Hello All,

I am a little late with a response to Judith's post concerning the usefulness of social networking and blogs. In my experience, blogs are useless for networking.

I wrote a blog for over a year and averaged maybe 2 or 3 visitors a week. I never received comments. I didn't get any jobs or meet anyone. I "advertised" the blog on several directories, but I don't have a Facebook page, so that was the extent of my advertising. Working against me as well was the topic: pharmacology and toxicology (although I wrote it for a general audience).

I think there are very few blog success stories relative to the number of blogs. I think popularity and usefulness are dependent on many factors, such as topic, promotion, SEO, etc.

I also question the usefulness of blogs as writing samples because they are self-published, and are therefore not subject to critique or the challenges of being good enough for publication.

Neil