Social media is not just growing by leaps and bounds. It’s totally transforming the way people get their news, communicate, make buying decisions...and, yes, socialize with one another.

Social media is increasingly impacting buying decisions, corporate marketing strategy and reputation management. While some estimates state that more than three-quarters of consumers trust peer recommendations, only 14 percent believe ads.

Social media is proving a daunting force in the training and educational arenas. Currently, one in six higher education students is enrolled in online curriculum.

Want to spread the word quickly? Consider that 80% of Twitter use is on mobile devices. People update all the time from anywhere - a potentially nightmarish scenario for a company with bad customer service.

Even employee recruitment is a social media strength. Estimates show that 80% of companies use LinkedIn to prospect for new hires.

Still skeptical? Consider these statistics:

• Years to reach 50 million users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years). Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months.
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama.
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.

Social media is important, expanding exponentially, and can make or break companies. Let’s examine its various forms and functions, provided courtesy of Kevin McIntosh’s marketing-ology blog:

• Social networking - Social networking sites allow users to add friends, send messages and share content. People on social networking sites group in communities of like-minded interest. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning.
• Social bookmarking - Social bookmarking applications allow users to share their favorite online content with one another while also creating online bookmarks that the user can refer to in the same way he would a bookmark created offline in his web browser. Examples include Digg, Delicious.
• Blogs - Blogs are online journals where the author can write (blog) about any topic. The blogger also can use the blog to share content picked up from other social media sites (YouTube, Issuu) by taking advantage of the simple embed codes offered by those content hosts. Blogs can be posted through such sites as Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, and other non-branded blogging platforms.
• Wikis - A wiki refers to content created online as a result of multiple users working on the same content, but at different times and from different places. Example: Wikipedia.
• Photosharing - Photosharing sites are where people can upload photos to share either privately with selected users or publicly. Creative Commons licensing rights can grant permissions for others to use the photos by simply embedding the codes in their blogs. Examples: Flickr, Photobucket.
• Video Sharing - Similar to photosharing. Users upload video content to a site for sharing either privately or publicly. Examples: YouTube, iMemories.
• Presentation Sharing - Files can be uploaded as PDFs and converted to work with online presentation applications. You’ll notice these presentation tools include embed codes and email options as well, making online sharing easy. Examples: Slideshare.net, Scribd, Issuu.

Social media is turning the world on its ear. Ready to listen, watch, and learn? Stay tuned.

Tags: Article, Networking, Social Media

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 12:50 am and is filed under Knowledge Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.