Social media is evolving & getting integrated into every walks our lives. Be it shopping, hanging out with friends, going out for movies or any other activity we are doing, we are always hooked on with our gadgets, constantly updating our status & sharing it with our online friends. For lot of people social media has become a very important source of the latest news or happenings around the world. Even journalists around the world are adopting it as a primary source of information. I would like to explain various virtues of social media in this post.
1. Social media is a democratic media at it's core & it has truly democratized this world & has given rise to citizen journalism where the common masses actively engage with each other and share the latest news & happenings around them with their friends, from where it can go viral. The latest controversy regarding radia tapes is one such incident which people of India initially came to know about only through twitter or facebook! Mainstream media was shy of covering the story since some members of mainstream media were themselves embroiled in this controversy!
2. Social media provides everyone with an opportunity to build their own personal brand. If you have a talent & you want to showcase it to the world, it is possible now! With tools like Twitter, Youtube, Blogs etc. you can spread your message far & wide. Most importantly, this is the only medium where your content can go viral! We have a great example of Justin Beiber who is now a darling of millions of hearts! Here are few more examples of Personal brands built using social media.
3. Social media has helped create a knowledge & information network around the world. It is evolving from it's regular usage of casual conversation & being in touch to more intelligent form of communication where users share knowledge & information with each other. Now with social media, one can learn a lot by watching videos on YouTube, reading blogs of renowned people in their areas of operation and connecting & networking with the same people on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn etc. Even Twitter has evolved as a information network rather than a social network. It has changed it's tagline twice, once from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" & then from "What's happening?" to "The best way to discover what’s new in your world."
4. Social media has helped create a business model around hiring known as social recruitment. Companies can now leverage social networks to help people spread the word across leading social networks & the products developed by companies like Jobvite & Hireplug in this space, help matching of the job with the right talent. The beauty of these products lies in their integration with the leading networks like Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. This new age hiring model is helping clients to reduce their hiring expenditure & at the same time increasing the efficiency by speeding the hiring process & getting the right talent.
There are several points under this topic which i will be covering in my next post. What do you think of virtues of social media?
