You may have heard people banging on about the “social media phenomenon” but you may be asking yourself what this phenomenon is all about. Well, your friends here at Chichester Design are on hand to explain all.
Social media is essentially about interaction. Unless you’ve been living underground for the past few years you would have heard of Facebook and Myspace, social mediums through which you can contact old buddies, poke (!) one another to your heart’s content, create various groups and post pictures and videos for all to see.
The notion all began with classmates.com in the US and then came the more Brit friendly Friends Reunited, where people could contact their old classmates and colleagues but were charged for the privilege. This presented a gap in the market, and Facebook, which off as a tool used just by an American college, filled this gap and became world renowned.
The kind of social networking that you go for usually depends on your geographical location. For example, MySpace is still going strong in the US where as Facebook is preferable for those living in the UK and Canada. Many English speaking professionals also use LinkedIn, where people working in different industries can build a business-relevant chain of contacts.
Issues with social networking
As with all new media, the gatekeepers worry about issues such as privacy and security and they are quite right too in many instances.
There is now so much information about everything and everyone available online that you need to be selective about what you put out there. Of course, if you are canvassing for work then you will want to garner numerous recommendations from your respected business contacts on LinkedIn but you should refrain from leaving drunken snaps of yourself for all to view on Facebook.
Security also comes into it, but what people don’t realise is that Facebook is a reasonably closed medium, in that you can be very picky about your own security settings and choose who you want to view what. So, as long as you employ a certain degree of common sense and you don’t graffiti your home telephone number and bank details all over your profile wall, you should be just fine.
Many people are cautious about using social media for professional networking as they are concerned what people will say about their company. But, to be frank, the general public do have opinions and they will say whatever they please about your brand/company anyway. Wouldn’t you rather have some sort of right to reply through social media?
This is what you have to focus on really, the opportunities and freedom that social networking brings to the business world.
Benefits of social media
Socialising – the more basic tools like Twitter can be used to share thoughts and communicate with like-minded people
Business – you can communicate with colleagues old and new, build up contacts and even go as far as using social media such as blogs to piece together your monthly reports
Marketing – social media is great for viral marketing as well as question and answer sections with the professional through blogs, which can help your customers to help themselves
Research – on the one hand, there are concerns about privacy but on the other hand, social media can help you to find out who does what and where
Fancy finding out a bit more about what Chichester Design can do for your business using social media, get in contact with Kate, our social media marketing expert and keep your eyes peeled for more of Kate’s social media blog entries.
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