subject: Social Media Creating a Small World [print this page] Social networking sites have made it possible for young minds across the world to engage, communicate, share and collaborate. US President Barack Obama once commented, "The multitude of social networking websites have changed the way youth communicate and form relationships." Obama, who used social networking as a central platform to win the US presidential elections has over 1.5 million friends on MySpace and Facebook, and over 45,000 followers on Twitter. No different is the millennial youth who will no longer just "Hang out" at the mall or at a gaming arena; rather prefer staying in touch with friends over social media platforms.
If you walk around any college, look around in your home, in a company or even in schools; you will find young minds chatting away or spending time on social networking sites sharing pictures, videos, and web links, and posting comments. In all probability, they are on Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace, Hi5, Google Buzz or YouTube. All these social media vehicles allow individuals to create a personal profile and start connecting to share experiences, information, news, views and opinions with individuals across the world. Somebody somewhere is accessing these websites 365 days, 247 (perhaps, barring maintenance time of server). But no more than five years ago; would anyone have believed that social media would get so big? Today, we cannot ignore the power of social media, because millions of people across the world are connecting to online groups or communities to share high-quality thoughts, ideas, concepts and content.
A perfect example would be Twitter, a micro blogging service to communicate quick and frequent thoughts with varied stakeholders friends, family, associates, colleagues, customers, consumers, fans, strangers, among others. One can even find many renowned personalities such as US President Barack Obama, Spiritual Leader Dalai Lama (the spiritual head of the Tibetan Buddhist community), and Bollywood stars as Priyanka Chopra, SRK, Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor and others sharing so called "Tweets" to keep in touch with their followers and fans. As per Nielsen Online, Twitter in 2009 registered more than 7 million unique visitors in the US alone.
A number of social media experts believe that social networking sites as Facebook, LinkedIn or Orkut help young minds look for suitable jobs, explore business opportunities and collaborations, or further almost any creative, analytical, technological or social interest or pursuit.
Globally, big companies, medium sized organizations and start ups have leveraged social media for marketing and communications of their products, services or plans. Politicians too have used it as an effective medium to engage the youth and connect with them. Additionally, social responsibility awareness campaigns such as Idea Cellular's "Save the Tigers" initiative has been successfully carried out through Facebook and Orkut. Social media is expected to evolve and provide better networking, awareness, communications, engaging and collaboration opportunities.
According to Bob Burg, author of the best seller book on social networking - "Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales," It isn't just what you know, and it isn't just who you know. It's actually who you know, who knows you, and what you do for a living. his quote epitomizes the fact that social networking is now more of a necessity than a choice.
