With the explosion of social networking and free blog sites, it is easier than ever to create your own blogs with just a few clicks of the mouse. The questions that don’t get asked are, do I own the content I create? If I upload images, are they still mine? What happens if this service goes away?

Where as social networking sites are great, ultimately they are at the hands of other companies. What they choose to do with their services, you have no choice but to go along with it, or delete your account.

Here are 13 reasons why you should purchase hosting and own your own blog.

1. Control
Whether you like it or not, MySpace, Facebook and Blogger all have rules and limitations that you have to abide to. It may not seem like a big deal at first, but as you decide to grow your blog, and expand your brand, they’ll soon become apparent.

2. Customization
Not all services allow you to make the site your own. Tumblr, Facebook and WordPress.org all have some sort of customization abilities, but is it enough? Just adding your logo or picture in the sidebar can be outside the limits of some free services.

Believe it or not, social media just may be what elects our next president into office. From Obama’s Girl to Giuliani’s Girl and now Hillary’s Girl, YouTube and other social media outlets will have a much larger impact on the younger voters than anything else.

Lets face it, watching a presidential debate is not high on many people’s list. It may have worked back in the day, but now more and more people are turning to the Internet for news and filtering out what they don’t want. Included in the filtering process will more than likely be campaign speeches, debates and candidates views. Instead, much of America will wait until someone spins it on MySpace, Facebook or YouTube before they really start paying attention. They won’t stop to fact check, they’ll just believe in it. That’s the way social media works though, if your friends say it’s true, it must be.