Social Media Explosion

Social media is going completely bonkers. If you don't know by now what social media websites are, you need to bring yourself into the 21st century quickly, and start paying attention! Or, read all of my articles and start learning... quickly!

Social media websites are sites on the internet which are created to get people together. It's similar to the art of "networking". Instead of having networking meetings at coffee houses, the activity of meeting people and making strategic connections for business or liesure has become something that takes place on the internet.

Years ago, the social media sites were mainly utilized by youth. Myspace.com started with the biggest splash on the social media scene about 7 years ago. The next big mover was Facebook.com. This site started at an ivy leaque college to help students keep in touch with each other. Well, as time went on, they decided to open up the site to other colleges. Years later, they deiced to blow the doors wide open and let anyone join. Many students revolted because they were very protective of their beloved social site, but now Facebook is used by over 100 million people worldwide.

What started as a movement that involved 13-year-olds chatting on the internet at all hours of the night turned into something that has become a mainstay in corporate America, schools, governmental agencies, and in many professions. I would hedge to bet that half of the users of social media sites are adults.

These adults are using sites like Facebook and Twitter not only to take advantage of networking opportunities, but also to get the word out about their products or services. And I might add, its working like a charm!

Business and professionals that don't start to use social media sites are going to find themselves far behind their competitors who do, because we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the way that we as a society communicate with each other. Those that have the biggest influence in the social media world will be considered trustworthy experts in their fields of work.

But some people have gone to the extreme, and are overusing social media sites. Since there are so many sites and "copycat" sites popping up each and every day, we are now finding services that provide multiple posting of single messages across the social media landscape. This has caused social media laziness, a new phenomenon.

The success thus far of social media is exactly what the name stands for. It's people being "sociable" and meeting one another. But when you use one site to post personal messages about yourself across 15 different social media sites, you are shooting yourself in the foot. When people write you in response to your postings and they don't ever hear back from you, you could be considered a "social media spammer". This activity defeats the whole purpose of what social media sites set out to accomplish... putting people together and eoncouraging communication!

So that means we have to be careful and evaluate why we are doing certain things on the social media sites, and we must make clear what our goals are. My rule of thumb is that you never use multi-posting services because you won't be able to keep up with the responses. When you leave postings unresponded, you will lose popularity quickly.

So check out the social media sites. There are many flavors. Some are for bookmarkng your favorite internet sites and sharing those bookmarks with others, some are for sharing pictures, some center upon video sharing, and others are simply "micro blogs", or sites that allow you only to post short and succinct messages. Give a few of them a try, and look for me on the social media sites yourself!

Carlton

For more information on social media and the web 2.0 phenomenon, visit my blog at the link below!