Virtues of social media: Part 2

Here is the next part of my earlier post on virtues of social media.

1. Social media has helped the Marketers to reach the customers or prospects in such a way as was never possible before. Now two way dynamic & real time communication is possible. Facebook is a great place to set up your company's page & build a community around your brand. One can customize advertisements a lot on facebook, thanks to facebook's massive database of more than 550 million users till date & still growing at a rapid pace. Many analysts think it will overtake google & become the king of web soon. Even twitter has emerged as a very good tool for marketers to have real time discussion with their customers. Many companies use it for CRM or to promote their new offerings. Dell has been pioneer in the use of twitter to increase it's sales. And the scope of using social media as a marketing tool is endless as it is still evolving and there will be a time when it will become very much a part of our life like we breathe air or drink water.

2. Social media is a great tool to create awareness among masses regarding the needs of fellow human beings. It has played a pivotal role in generating the necessary funds for various causes around the world. Various NGOs & activists around the world are adopting it widely. Beth kanter is known worldwide & especially in America for her efforts around fund generation for the NGOs.

3. Social media is changing the rules of governance around the world. It's impact on politics, elections etc. is significant. Never forget the way Barack Obama used social media extensively in his run to be the president of USA & he became! The way Oscar Morales used facebook to protest against FARC in Colombia is an excellent example of citizen activism & the power it unleashes through social media. Social media played a crucial role in generating funds for Haiti relief, Iran elections, and so on. This piece by Mashable is an example on that!

The list is endless & many more points can be thought of on the virtues of social media. Share your ideas.

Virtues of social media: Part 1

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?