Social Media 101

Twitters, Facebooks, Wikis and blogs!!!! Just when you think you have it all down, along comes another website, or blog, or buzz word that you’ve never heard of. If you are a social media fanatic, you are able to stay up on everything that is going on, but for anyone who has just joined us, here is a basic run through Social Media.

What exactly is social media? How do you use it? What are the benefits? Even if you have heard about MySpace, started your own FaceBook site and entertained the thought of twittering, you may not know everything about social media.

At its best, social media is the ability to reach out and connect with your friends and family to whatever degree you desire. You can use a few sentences on Twitter, or you can keep your FaceBook page updated with photos and the latest events in your life. It seems that we want to know everything about the people we like – what are they doing (right now!), what restaurants do they like to eat at, have they seen any good movies lately?

FaceBook and MySpace allow you to incorporate photos and build your own little bio with whatever personal information you would like to share. It’s not there for the world to see, you must be invited.

And almost everyone seems to have a blog anymore. This is where you can write about anything you want for anyone to see. A lot of people use it in conjunction with their website as it can be updated regularly. Anyone who reads your blog can post their comments and it is this feedback that helps a lot of companies gauge the products and services that they provide. This direct feedback is not available through almost any other type of media.

But it is not only blogs that provide this feedback on the internet. There are plenty of social media sites that are devoted to following the latest current events. These sites provide an important forum for like-minded people to compare information, thoughts, and insights on topical issues.

Social media is being recognized for its most important feature – social marketing. Companies can reach across the country and find out immediately what the response is to their product or product line. This range of feedback is second to none. Companies can make better decisions on what real consumers like or dislike. It’s like having the entire country as your focus group.

Social media has joined hands with social networking to create the ultimate forum – a place where if people like something, they will share it for all to see. This is truly word of mouth at the highest level. By the same token, when the people speak they are usually honest and you have to take the good with the bad. If a product doesn’t live up to its hype, the company will be aware of it right away.

The power of the internet and the wide span that encompasses social media still boggles the mind. Your responses can help a company create or better their products on a national level, or you can just get online and see what your friends are doing later…

3 Responses to “Social Media 101”

1. Tweets that mention Social Media 101 -- Topsy.com says:

   September 16, 2009 at 8:55 am

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2. 25 Mind Blowing Social Media Infographics « Jonathan Bowker says:

   January 9, 2010 at 3:32 pm

   [...] Social Media 101 [...]

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3. fn (Frederick Noronha) says:

   January 12, 2010 at 11:34 pm

   Social Media 101 http://www.webdoctus.com/2009/09/social-media-101/

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