What to expect from Social Media ?

Social Media is a buzzword these days, especially in the form we see it; that is the online form of social media. It has become a part of people’s day to day life. Anything or any incident that  happens in the society these days becomes virulent in no time. I often ask, what do you expect from social media? You spent so much time into it and a part of money too, what’s the output?

perspective of social media

According to Wikipedia, “Social Media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue between organizations, communities and individuals”. Social media are different from industrial and traditional media, such as newspaper and television. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone to publish or access information compared to industrial media, which generally require significant resource to publish information.

These days we can see the use of social media almost in every field like in education, research, awareness campaign and many more. According to a new survey from CareerBuilder, nearly two in five companies (37 percent) use social networking sites to research job candidates. Many companies and organizations are using social media to get feedback, comments, complaints and more as a source of research and development.

Social media benefits you in different ways. Social Media is the online media that has made its way into the main business sector as well. We can see lots of organizations and companies engaging with it. It is a platform to build awareness about your company’s products and  brands. It is a platform to listen to your customers, to know their views – what type of products they want, things that need to do to improve your products quality, what are their expectations from your company and many more. If you really want to succeeded in social media and thereby in business, listening and responding are truly the first and most important step. Its like a success mantra for your company because today, the consumer has a lager voice than ever.

“I expect social media to strengthen Freedom of Expression, thereby strengthening democracy. In social media, the information receiver and disseminator, both are end users. This means a business tycoon does not have control over information. As information flow is produced and directed by common people, freedom of expression – which is the beauty and strength of democracy – is established. You can take the democratic movement in Africa in 2011, which started and proliferated through Twitter and Facebook, as good examples of this.” Says Somesh Verma (@someshverma) (Television Personality)

Ekendra Lamsal (@Ekendra) (Technocrat, Engineer, Geek and a Social Media Enthusiast) says, “The other day I had a strong argument with a friend who never twitted even once. He was complaining my twitting habits – my repetitive tweets, good morning and good night tweets, and tweets to display my geolocation presence. He had a problem with my presence on Twitter, maybe an ego problem or whatever. I use this social micro-blogging like this, and it is meant for my sole purpose. I expect to share personal and important events and information on social sites to keep on connected and updated. Social Media is how you use it, you define your options and yours actions account you. However, professional presence is a different aspect. Just remember to respect others in social media like you do expect from others.”

“Social Media is a broad field. And you can expect many things from Social Media including broadcasting your views to marketing your business. If we think from journalism prospective, Social Media is challenging main stream media, though it’d be great if they work as complementary to each other. Social Media is pushing citizen journalism and gives you a freedom to express your views, posting photos and videos. You don’t need to wait for TV/Radio or Paper to have access to news.” Says Aakar Anil (@aakarpost) (Internet Marketing Consultant, Social Media Enthusiast, Engineer and a Blogger)

Jaw Knock Raazaa (@jaw_knock) (Blogger, Traveler, Dreamer and a Social Media Enthusiast) has a quite different approach, he says, “Social Media is a platform for clever people and time-killer for the dumbs! You may find a never got opportunity of finding a long-lost friend, be in contact with those people who are very far from you, find breaking news and share your moments, but the most influential thing about social media is the striking network it invents. If you are aware enough, then u can expect job opportunities, spouses and other things as well from social media, and it also creates a enormous paths to promote your stuffs throughout the people.”

Social Media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube and Google Plus have number of benefits for companies as well as for individuals because these social media platforms are completely free to use, the only cost is the time spent on updating profiles and interacting with the friend circles or contacts. Moreover, social media can grow a global presence of individuals and companies. It will be an abstract idea if we judge social media with negative criticism and expect only its positiveness. Social media  gave some serious bad effects but also some good reasons on the other hand. It depends on the way how you use and take it.

In the above quotes, all four have talked about different aspects of social media. But one threat that combines all of them is: they talk about people’s involvement in social media. That’s the reason of its success. It is about people, for the people. That is what I expect from social media. People and society.