Battle of The Social Networks

Before going into the details on why I prefer one social networking site over another it's probably important that I air something out to my readers first. I am a professional model. With that said, my work ranges in the alternative, fetish, and tattoo communities. It's an industry that is dominated by female models, however I was determined to get my foot in the door my freshman year of college in Chicago. If you are unfamiliar with any of these terms you can do what the cool kids do these days..... Wikipedia It!

The first thing I had to do was create a name for myself as well as brand myself. For this I joined the site Model Mayhem.

Autumn of 2006 was my freshman year at Columbia College Chicago after taking a year off out of high school. At the time Model Mayhem was really popular for models, photographers, make-up artists, hair stylists etc. The site featured a forum, individual profiles, a search engine, and casting calls. The problem is that the site hasn't changed much from 2006 to now, in 2012.

I still have a profile on there in case someone contacts me. I don't log on very often though as I don't get much work from the site nor do I make many connections with others. The site provides a gathering place for a niche community. I have gotten work through the site and it's actually how I started getting jobs as an independent model. The problem is that the site doesn't create a "community" the way sites like Facebook and even Myspace did. The format actually reminds me of a dating site in that there isn't much inter-connectivity beyond a forum.

How Do You Create A Web-Based Community You Ask?

• Having the ability to publicly follow members

• Having the ability to publicly share content
• Creating efficiency with an easy to use format
• Having the ability to embed and or link on your additional social networking profiles to your page

Unless Model Mayhem overhauls their current format, I won't be returning as a major user of their site. Even if they were to overhaul the site I still may not become a major user unless many others began to sign up with Model Mayhem. The point for a user of a site like Model Mayhem is to connect and build working, profitable relationships with others. If there isn't a large, active member base then the site remains rather useless to someone like me.

I've made the transition from Model Mayhem to Fetlife. 

Fetlife is very much like Facebook just with less chaos/ads and apps. It also differs in that it's specifically catered to the alternative and fetish communities. For someone like me who models in these industries this became the perfect, large platform to promote myself. Beyond the niche platform, Fetlife really provides at atmosphere that allows for web-based communities to form.

Fetlife

• 100% Free
• Easy to use interface
• Members can publicly follow each other
• Members can publicly share content
• Members can link to other social networking sites they are apart of
• Active groups for people to join
• Events, classes, & parties across the world are posted
• Model calls, photographer/videographer calls etc.
• Over 1,300,000 active members
• Fetlife I-Phone App

Most importantly Fetlife continues to make adjustments similar to how Facebook does. Additional features are periodically added, layout changes occur from time to time and the creators have the user in mind. I would like to see the search engine improve when it comes to locating other members by name if you don't remember exactly how they spell it. With that said, this is a minor complaint and Fetlife is always talking advice from members through email contact.