Its like Twitter but with a close knit community and a great background. Think Twitter pre-2007 before it was commercialised and business ads started jumping on board.
I also use CloudFlare have found that it loads my website faster and has doubled my traffic on most days. I'd recommend it, even if you have a fast server.
I used to be a freelance graphic & web designer and writer. I found most of my gigs on Fiverr (http://fiverr.com/) and posting to my Twitter & Facebook followers.
You could also try creating a website and optimising it so it shows well in the search results for your specified field.
Don't share every second of your life. Keep to yourself what you want private and share what you want public. No need to mess around with other identities.