Nine Social Media Sites Every Writer and Journalist Should Know

If you're like me, you've already allotted a portion of your work time into keeping your Internet presence current via the basic social media sites. If you're a writer or journalist, the obvious places to build your brand online include Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. You need at least one blog, too, and you need to keep it current, whether here on blogger.com or via another blogging platform. 

You do this because clients expect to know "what you've done lately." You don't want your online presence to turn into a virtual ghost town where your last post was during the last presidential administration--or even longer ago--or your most recent employment was for a long-defunct company. If you do have a site like that, you should take it down, and maintain your online profile some other way.

Below are nine additional online resources that writers, journalists, and photojournalists who are building online recognition need to be familiar with. Some sites are free, some require fees, some are blogging sites, others are for building your own website, and others are employment-oriented where your online resume is a tool for professional networking, or for selling your intellectual property. 

1.  One popular social media blog site is Tumblr where you can not only post words (articles) and links but also pix, videos, GIFs, art, and just about anything else you want to post in a blog: 

https://www.tumblr.com/

2.  Muck Rack is where journalists may build their own online portfolio, similar to Linkedin, but more specifically tailored to journalists and the networking tools journalists need:

https://muckrack.com/journalists

3.  Moon Fruit provides a platform where you may build your own website. It does require paying for the site hosting, which runs in the range of $6+ per month to $10+ per month. So if you pay for the privilege of posting on this site, you'll have to tailor your posts to generate enough income to cover the monthly payments:

https://www.moonfruit.com/

4.  Word Press is a blogging tool and content management system, allowing you to both create a website and host a blog--it's not free, fees run from about $4 to $45 monthly (billed in one lump sum yearly) depending on range of services. If you use this site, you'll need to use it in a way that generates enough income to cover the fee:

https://wordpress.com/

5. Fiverr matches freelance services and entrepreneurs with businesses seeking freelance services, it's similar to Linkedin:

https://www.fiverr.com/?source=top_nav

6.  Pressfolios provides a way for journalists and others to create an online portfolio with bio, photo, and links to online writing samples. It's a site that requires monthly fees, $9.99 per month with a limit of 250 stories (links), or $14.99 per month for unlimited stories. Obviously you'll have to be able to generate enough income from your online presence here in order to justify continuing to pay the fee.

https://www.pressfolios.com/

7.  Online writing portfolio website clippings.me (yes, that's .me and not .com or anything else) is oriented towards journalists, bloggers, and writers in general. You start with your bio and a background picture and then add your online articles, PDFs, and videos such as You Tube or Vimeo. One advantage is that it's a free site, unless the user wants to pay for the "Premium" package.

https://www.clippings.me/

8.  If you think you have professional-quality photos with journalistic or editorial value, you can submit them to Shutterstock where maybe--maybe--they'll be accepted into the site's content library, and a customer needing a stock shot will pay for the use of your photo. You're competing with millions here, so you need to be very careful to submit your best work, both at a technical and artistic level. 

https://submit.shutterstock.com/

9.  Getty Images includes iStock by Getty Images, and for either site, would-be sellers of stock photos are directed to gettyimages.com/workwithus where site visitors are informed that applications are only accepted through the "Contributor by Getty Images app" downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

https://www.gettyimages.com/workwithus