Ten years ago, MySpace was founded and social media began taking over the web. What started off as a simple profile adding “friends” into your network, turned into a networking phenomenon that is growing exponentially a decade later.
How is social media changing your world?
- Brands rely on consumers rather than advertising. You can share your likes and dislikes about brands, companies, restaurants, etc. and influence consumers on where to spend their money. Yelp is one of the most popular social media applications and user reviews, rather than advertising, bring in consumers.
- Users can help you solve a problem. What do you do when your car needs new brakes? Ask your Twitter
followers who is the best mechanic in your area? This is what we used to use the phonebook for: figuring out what company or person can solve our problems. - We learn news as it happens. Instead of waiting for a morning paper or the evening news, we are finding out what’s happening when it happens. Whether the death of a celebrity or the presidential election, we are kept up-to-date with what’s happening in our world. When I need my news, I go to Twitter or Facebook to get it.
- Sharing ideas (and other things). Social media is all about sharing; whether it’s what you’re creating or what you’re eating, people will share it with the world. When was the last time you told someone what the color of your drink was? Oh yeah, last time you Instagrammed it.
- We can reach out to anyone. It’s completely possible to have conversations with your favorite celebrities or CEOs. Thought leaders have hit the social media ground running and are often replying or answering inquiries from fans and followers. These people are no longer inaccessible. You can reach out to them as easy as sending a tweet.
- We are always learning from each other. Even though there is plenty of fluff on the internet (really, how many more pictures of your cat do I need to see?) there is also a vast pool of knowledge we can glean from not only friends, but thought leaders and influencers as well. Sites like creativeLIVE that take online education and make it social are just one of the many ways people can learn and share new content and ideas.
What have you learned from social media? How has it affected your life or your traditional networking or media consumption?
