Monday 5 List #30-Social Media Sites

As a business librarian I frequently instruct small business owners, their staff, job seekers and adults in career transition on how to utilize social media in their professional lives. My job is fascinating, humbling and never boring. I often combine instruction on how to utilize the library's resources such as databases and new technology with social media and in order to instruct these tools I need to use them.
So for today's Monday 5 list, here are the social media sites that I get asked about, use and instruct most frequently:

• Facebook. There are not many people or businesses that I interact with these days who are not on Facebook (personally I have a Facebook profile and 3 Facebook pages). But recently I've noticed a decline in people using Facebook in favor of other sites including...
• Twitter. Probably the social media site that I instruct the most, especially to job seekers. Twitter is a never ending source of news, networking and ideas. Twitter is the first site I check on my phone in the morning and the last one I check at night. It's also my go to source if I want to share a complaint or compliment for business and news. 
• Pinterest. The photo sharing website organized like a virtual pinboard is addicting. I use it as a way to source everything from recipes to inspiration. Small business owners are discovering how combining Pinterest boards with ecommerce can be very beneficial.
• YouTube and Vine. Demo videos, tutorials, laughs, you name it you'll find it on YouTube. I've instructed small business owners on YouTube from real estate agents highlighting houses to travel agents highlighting destinations. Haven't heard of Vine? You will soon. Users create 7 second videos with this mobile app and businesses are getting creative. 
• Foursquare. Location based social media through your phone, businesses often offer incentives to "check in" at their locations and users utilize Foursquare to find their friends and tips on places and businesses. Plus Foursquare is just plain fun.

Looking for more social media connections, find me on all of the above sites as Lively Librarian and or Shannon Distel Scanlan.