As I mentioned in a previous post, for years I had resisted partaking in the obvious and inevitable integration of Social Media (SM) into the fabric of my daily life. Until August of last year I had successfully avoided social media and networking like they were a plague. At that time for the most part I was a Web 1.0 person, my only indulgence in the Web 2.0 world was Skype which I had begun using four years prior in 2007. This might prompt you to ask how/why would such a Web 2.0 illiterate be a Skype user. Well, it was out of necessity, my son was in an exchange student program in South Korea and Skype was the least expensive (free) way I could not only talk to him but most importantly see his face (priceless) - but that was the extent of my indulgences and experience with Web 2.0 tools. Here's a list of Web 1.0 and 2.0 offerings:
Web
1.0
|
Web
2.0
|
|
domain name speculation
|
→
|
search engine optimization, fans,
and followers
|
page views
|
→
|
cost per click
|
screen scraping
|
→
|
Web services
|
publishing
|
→
|
participation
|
content management systems
|
→
|
wikis
|
directories (taxonomy)
|
→
|
tagging (“folksonomy”)
|
Britannica Online
|
→
|
Wikipedia
|
personal Web sites
|
→
|
blogging, status updates, and link
sharing
|
Ofoto
|
→
|
Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter
|
instant messaging
|
→
|
Twitter and Facebook
|
Monster.com
|
→
|
LinkedIn
|
RealNetworks
|
→
|
YouTube
|
YellowPages.com
|
→
|
Yelp
|
Travelocity
|
→
|
TripAdvisor
|
Vonage
|
→
|
Skype
|
However, as the result of a class I took, Summer 2011, I first got my toes wet at several of the major sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and Google. Yes, as I said before, I am ashamed to say, I did go kicking and screaming but after a couple of weeks in that class I began to see the power and the value of SM. I was amazed at how much easier it was to stay connected and I was surprised when I realized how businesses were also utilizing these Web 2.0 tools for their advantage.
In UF's ISM 3004 - Computing for the Business Environment, I have learned even more as I've delved into the deep of blogs, Google+ and other Web 2.0 methods of communication. I've come to realize that blogging can give anyone a very real and powerful voice and presence in our society. Many businesses have wised up to this fact and not only do they blog - they also constantly monitor electronic media to ensure that there isn't "anything out there in cyberspace" that could jeopardize their reputation. The old quote, "The pen is mightier than the sword", can certainly move over and make room for "Keystrokes are giving the pen a run for its money".
Today many businesses also realize that SM should be a vital part of their strategy for marketing as SM can be used as one-way and/or two-way communication and marketing tactics which allows companies to send a highly targeted message to a large number of potential customers. And do it very quickly and at costs extremely lower than traditional advertising.
Successful companies are those companies that proactively embrace "Our Forever Connected World". They become a part of the social media community by creating Blogs or Twitter feeds or establishing pages on social networking sites like Facebook, etc. This helps to set them up to successfully achieve their goal of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. This is just another of the many reasons why SM is so vital and necessary to businesses. For more information and/or to see real-life examples, check out these sites on the Web:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogtrafficexchange.com/why-big-companies-are-blogging/
http://www.sitepoint.com/15-companies-that-really-get-corporate-blogging/
Just these few reasons I have touched on in this blog post is assurance to me that our society has no intentions of letting Social Media go - it's here to stay...
*Wrtten consent for reuse with attribution granted in front cover of textbook.
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