Recently, I have seen many good examples showing the importance of social networking for translators.
I am a member of many groups for translation and languages on Linkedin and Facebook . We share many articles, news and all sorts of media via these groups. On Facebook there is group for Turkish Translation Students. One of the members published a post: “Do not work with X translation company because they just do not pay you back.” There were many comments about that. Everybody thanked to that member because, hereupon, the students will not trust this company.
Another importance of social networking is the exchange of opinions. This generally happens on Linkedin. If you have any questions on your mind about translation or languages, all the professional translators out there welcome you and they do their best with their comments and messages to help you. I do this very often. Here are some of my previous questions: “Should we translate city names?”, “Should we translate company names?” etc. I got very rich comments some of which I have published already.
In conclusion, if you do not want to be fooled by ‘some translation companies’, be a member of as many groups as you can. All these groups will also help you with your questions 
Good luck!
Recommendations on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/aimconsultingtr
http://www.facebook.com/groups/111713658862690/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/5733054045/
Recommendations on Linkedin:
English Language Translators Freelance Translators - Interpreters network GlobalJobZ - (GLIT) Localization, Interpretation and Translation International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) Lingua Professional Translators and Interpreters (ProZ.com) Trad Online - traduction, translation, traducción, traduzione, translators!
Posted by Aurélie Duclos on October 20, 2011 at 10:00
Thanks for mentioning our Trad Online linkedin group
Here’s the URL for those interested http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=145268. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Al waleed on October 20, 2011 at 17:56
thanks for this rich and wonderful feedback
Posted by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on October 20, 2011 at 23:10
Everytime I get contacted by a new unknow customer for potential job, I definitely check the company and in particular the e-mail address on Proz.com.
Posted by Cindy Coan on October 24, 2011 at 19:28
It’s good to know what companies are less than trustworthy about payments, but it would also be good to hear of others’ positive experiences with honest, reliable companies. Warnings about deadbeat companies have their place, but compliments of good companies should be posted too.
Cindy Coan
http://www.proz.com/profile/600510
Posted by cole on October 25, 2011 at 16:32
the industry can be a shark tank at times. the sheer number of translation companies makes it difficult to find people worth working with. i think positive comments and recommendations are even more important than negative ones.
Posted by Sarai on July 5, 2012 at 13:44
Social networking is so important for translators – I believe that we become very isolated because we spend so much time working in front of our computers – particularly freelancers. I’m glad you’ve highlighted this. I find LinkedIn to be the most useful social network – you can reach so many people so easily. Thanks for a great blog post!