So What Is Social Media Anyway?
In a nutshell, social media is all about authentic conversations, it’s also about where conversations are happening (You tube, twitter, blogs etc.) or, how whats being said is spread (communication, entertainment, collaboration, multimedia). Social media is changing the way we communicate and the way we do business and it is changing rapidly!
Social media is becoming your resume, your reputation, your future, whether you are a business or an individual.
Social media is POWER, let me explain.
A November’s Harvard Business Review article, states that a recent study from colleagues at Johns Hopkins, (presented at the American College of Surgeons) showed that a sample of Wikipedia medical articles did not contain a single gregarious factual error. In fact, the vast majority were considered by the researchers to be appropriate references. And, a recent Pew study found that nearly 40% of Americans say they have doubted a medical professionals opinion or diagnosis because it conflicted with information they’d found online.
Wikipedia is social media by collaboration of people from every walk of life and the articles are a mashup from several people, perhaps dozens!
Social media has forever changed peoples perceptions and behaviors. Today the old ‘business to customer’ marketing plan has been replaced by the ‘customer to customer’ conversation. You need to participate in that conversation affect it’s outcome.
Tell me, did you read reviews before you purchased you last electronic device or car? Do you read reviews at Amazon, do they impact your purchases? They do me!
What if a prospect you were trying to land was doing research on you or your business and they searched your name or a generic description of your product or service? What if they found images, articles, posts, blogs, forum threads, quotes etc. and they all lead to you or your site? Would you or your company be perceived as the expert(s) in the field? I don’t care if you spend your entire marketing budget on SEO (Search Engine Marketing), you will never get those results without participatory social media.
Consider social media to be the power behind you the individual, you the brand.
