Blogs and forums are used to promote products / services and to inform people about issues which you may need to research about a product, or for example, DIY to give you up-to-date information. Many people use forums to get information they need, not necessarily to join one. News stories from bloggers aren’t always dependable, although many people do find blogs for product reviews.

Social media is also advantageous in real life experiences, i.e. following selected people on Twitter can be beneficial, as Jenny, our online news and PR manager discovered. Also, the news on the Hudson Plane crash posted on Twitter was passed around the world faster than any of the media coverage on satellite or cable TV.

With social networking you tend to build your own portfolio and web presence, creating links to people you know or people who may be of interest to you, generating a network, whether personal or professional.

Blogging is all about giving your opinion on a subject and can be more educational, unless you have your own site you’re not going to be building a web presence. Blogging can go from giving your opinion on a subject matter to reviews of products or services.

Both blogging and social networking are very different, yet can offer the similar routes to problem solving and product knowledge, getting you the information you need.

With virtual social networking taking the world by storm it’s no wonder marketers have already jumped on the band wagon promoting their businesses and colleagues, for example, the use of Twitter has totally entranced our colleagues here @ WebCertain, follow: @globalppc @starbuck8 @jennysimpson @davidsegal @davidecorradi @ballueder @WebCertain @J__9 @YorkSEO @globalseo @andyatkinskruge @seoprtips @newscertain @WebCertain_DE @AnaVLeckenby @oscarcarreras, for updated information on specialised areas of multilingual search!

Promoting the latest international search summit, general information about PR, SEO, link building, PPC etc… has developed a wider knowledge on each subject, by sharing and re-tweeting relevant data to enhance the specialised knowledge arena WebCertain hold.

Many businesses and organisations are using online facilities and companies such as WebCertain not only for English articles, as we are multilingual; multiple languages from across the globe play a large part in how they operate, especially for clients. Online PR is a great way of getting your company, news / press releases / data, relayed around the world, especially using press release sites with an overseas domain, rather than the traditional offline methods. This however, does vary upon client needs; everyone wants something different and to be unique, so be adaptable and knowledgeable on your subject arena to create the best possible service for your company and your clients!

As the BBC says: “Britons could be jeopardising their health as they spend more time in virtual worlds than the real one, according to the psychologist Dr Aric Sigman.”

This story will “have legs” (as they say) – not only is it about the latest geek / media topic (social media), but it is also science (a subject that it can be difficult to find stories with mass appeal about).

The story is given credibility by Dr Sigman’s impressive credentials. According to his own website, he is “a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Member of the Institute of Biology” etc.

To summarise the health issue exposed, according to the journal Biologist, lonely people are more susceptible to strokes, high blood pressure, dementia and are more likely to die early.

This has been extrapolated into a warning that people who depend on virtual networks for their social contact are at risk of the same health problems.

So far so reasonable and you can’t blame Dr Sigman for the subs creating scary headlines like: “Virtual worlds are damaging our children’s health”.

The simple, practical warning that spending too much time alone can lead to isolation and, in turn, to poor health is now lost in a big old moral panic.

Hmmm, now here comes the science bit…well not really. I did a quick Google search for Dr Aric Sigman and in the first page of results there were some familiar stories.

19th Feb 2007: The 15 ways in which too much TV wrecks your child’s health (The Mail)

7th Aug 2008: How seeing movies like Batman can turn our children violent (Also The Mail)

Also 19th Feb 2007: Turn off TV girls or risk early puberty (The Times)

Oct 1st 2005 : How TV is (quite literally) killing us ( Whale)

It’s clear that Dr Sigman is a passionate campaigner for his subject, but the re-spinning of this original story to piggyback the wave of stories on social networking ultimately weakens the scientific statement.

This is not a bashing of Dr Signman! I would like to point out that, we are undoubtedly in agreement on the following points.

Too much TV is bad!
Watching violent TV / films at an early age is bad!
ONLY having virtual friends is bad!

However, virtual networks do offer an outlet to create friendships for people who have difficulties dealing with “real life” social situations – and therefore, they must be a good thing – providing the attendant health benefits.

What do you think about this and bad science stories in general?

Read Oscar Carreras on the negative reputation campaign against social media

The Telegraph seems to publish about 5 Twitter stories a minute, which proves it is hot stuff (they have an editorial policy of making sure they are writing stories on the top Google searches, something they have been mocked for.

But, hey wait a minute – this providing what the reader wants rather than forcing upon us the biased views of the owner – right kids? And it was what we were doing years ago at www.ananova.com – before I’d heard of SEO)

However, at the moment at least the Telegraph list of the top 30 Twitter users is blank…tut tut.

Tech Digest doesn’t think Facebook will be around in five years

I don’t know, but I do know that Friends Reunited is but a distant memory…