How Social Media Has Changed the World

Photo Credit - www.istockphoto.com

 What is Social Media ? 

With today's population of more than 2.4 billion users of internet and social media, this question seems redundant. But according to a popular survey, a huge amount of people are still not aware of the power of social media and what it can do for them . So, just to clarify Social media (from hereon mentioned as SM), is essentially a group of people sharing information they want with each other. Remember the real life versions of such get together!, No, of course you don't. SM has completely changed how we interact with people now. Its not over a glass of wine over at a dinner party, its through posts ,tweets,likes, and tags. Some people might describe this transition as a negative impact on our social life, but is it? These days if we want to share information, it is as easy as a click of a button. If we want to invite someone to an event we can just do so by tweeting about it or sharing on Facebook. Its easy, fast, reliable and has the potential to reach a larger audience. So the question you have to ask yourself is, "Is Social Media a Bad thing"? Surely, if you a have a teenage son or a daughter who is spending the better part of his/her life glued to a laptop on Facebook or Pinterest, you might think otherwise. But, on the other hand, if you have a small business and you want to compete with the bigger players in the market, Social Media is your best bet ! If you are working for a good cause and want the people to know about it, SM is the way to go ! Hence, in its essence SM has the power to do both good and bad , but we, as users have the responsibility to choose which one! Lets see the evolution of Social media in more detail.

A little history lesson in SM !
What was the first Social networking site you recall?
 Is it Facebook?, Twitter?, or if you are of some age then perhaps its MySpace or even Orkut ! 
Truth is Internet has always been social. Yes ! that's true. From 1969 Compuserve's dial up connection to 2013 Snap chat , idea has always been the same i.e information sharing between users. However that idea comes in different shapes and sizes now. It's branched in blogs, microblogs, Vlogs(video-blogs), Social bookmarking, Social Networking, News, digitized - storytelling ,image and video shared , podcasts, writing communities and many more. The very first blogging platform that comes to mind is indeed 1997's "Sixdegrees.com". It was the first new age social networking site which allowed users to create profiles and become friends . It had about 1 million users. At the same time AOL also threw its ball in the proverbial social media court with its Instant messaging, which empowered users to chat with each other in real time!. In 1999, Blogger was launched and it became an instant hit with the users. It gave us a personalized space to write on the web . Its still is a very popular blogging platform. In 2002, friendster was launched which had decent following till Facebook came into the market in 2004 and created history. In 2013 it has evolved into something more than a typical social media site. It has become an essential part of every user's life. People use it to share every thing in their lives from vacation photos to work blunders! Another effective social media site was Twitter. Not so popular at first but with time users began to love its idea of 140 character shout outs that enabled them to share information more effectively than ever before .

Photo credit - Anurag Tripathi

It's Impact on our lives 

Ever wondered how life was without the Internet ? It's almost impossible to imagine, Right? This is because Social media has found its way into our lives and its their to stay. And its a good thing too , in Aristotle's words "Man is by nature a social animal". This quote by aristotle could not be more correct. As we are, in every sense of the word "social" by nature. proof is the large amount of time we spend on our social profiles. Seeing the increasing involvement of people in social media , businesses have decided to utilize the power of social media in their marketing strategies. So, if you love social media, you can make a career out of it by being a social media marketer for companies and handling all of their online presence, increasing brand awareness and getting the right kind of information to the right kind of people, at the right time. Now that, is certainly a use of social media only a few people saw coming .

Social Media for Business 

As mentioned above, anyone can have a career in social media. That means businesses have started realizing the power Social Media holds and how much useful it can be for them. These days Social Media Marketing is popular among big corporations, as it helps them spread awareness about their brands and involves reaching new audience .With the advancement of technology, now they can target a specific group of people that are relevant to their Brand - this practice is called target audience . Blogs are a good way of telling the customers what's new and provide information for all the latest activities, cause the website is not so effective when it comes to updating the consumers about the latest updates about the company on a daily basis but a blog is. Companies also use paid advertising to promote their brands by paying popular social network sites. So the next time you find an advertisement that is relevant to your needs and requirements on your Facebook page, remember its not by chance !

Conclusion 

When all is said and done , what is the one most important thing that matters to the users is the practicality of any Social media tool or website. How is it going to impact their personal and professional lives? How they can connect to more people that share common interests in a better way? The people don't need another photo sharing website, they have enough of those already . What they need is a better way of connecting to others and use those connections for mutual benefits , be it financial, educational, personal or emotional. So at last I would like to point out that, it is us, the users who has the power to use Social Media in a way that would be beneficial to all .