5 Reasons to Love Social Media

Posted on September 13, 2009 
Filed under Communications, Social Media, education, schools




My social Network on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter...
Image by luc legay via Flickr

Shane Haggerty, a school communications professional from Ohio, recently posted the following list on his blog, Social Avenue. I felt the need to post it here because I feel exactly the same way as he does about social media.  Thanks, Shane!

  1. New Connections: More than anything else, social media has opened up a whole new pool of connections, many of whom have become friends. While most of these connections remain on the professional level, the use of tools like Twitter and Facebook and Linkedin have been an excellent way of doing business and getting to know new people. At first, it seemed strange opening up on these tools, but choosing to “follow” like-minded professionals has been great for learning new things that I probably never would have had the chance to know before.
  2. Old Connections: Thanks especially to Facebook, Linkedin or other social networking sites (the now-irrelevant MySpace), social media has changed the way we keep in touch and has allowed us to re-connect to old friends. Some may think that’s a bad thing to re-connect with that person who may have driven you crazy in junior high, but for the most part, social media creates a sort-of “at-a-distance” re-kindling of old friendships. This is excellent if you are nosey and want to see what a disaster that person has become who used to torment you in gym class.
  3. Lightning Speed: The ability to blast messages and communicate with masses of people is made much, much faster with social media. While email is still popular, full inboxes, Spam and an abundance of e-newsletters have created an opening for social media to take advantage of, which is to send short, quick messages and then make it viral with sharing tools that allow you to pass-it-on with the click of a button.
  4. Leveling the Playing Field: Never before has a medium allowed small businesses, entrepreneurs, everyday, common people, non-profits and more market to the masses like social media has. This is one of my favorite things about it. Before, large advertising budgets of the corporate giants could quickly swallow the messages of the rest of us and celebrities controlled our attention anytime they wanted. Now, the mom-and-pop store can easily create a viral sensation on tools like YouTube and any one of us can be a “celebrity” with our own blog or large followings on Twitter and Facebook.
  5. Down Fall the Sacred Cows: Finally, I simply love it because it makes the establishment and those who love control and order nervous. Social media, because it is new and viral and real and transparent gives control to anyone, anywhere, anytime. I love anything that shakes things up and takes down existing “sacred cows.” Social media has caused people to change, and change is always a good thing.
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2 Responses to “5 Reasons to Love Social Media”

  1.  Ugos on September 24th, 2009 9:44 am

    У данной статьи четко выраженный информативный стиль, спасибо Вам.

  2.  Rob on September 30th, 2009 2:34 pm

    I wonder, when did Myspace become irrelevant? Clearly it’s dropped in popularity, and I don’t hear as much about it anymore. Guess it lost out to facebook.

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