Social Media Day
World Social Media day is on June 30th – a time to celebrate all of the friends and contacts we have made on social media.
Social Media day was launched back in 2010 by the website Mashable.
Social media appears to have taken over our lives, although some of the pioneering sites have now disappeared from our radar. MySpace has long gone, but there are many new sites taking over. Alongside Twitter and Facebook, there is LinkedIn, Vine, Snapchat and Tik Tok, one of the fastest growing platforms.
Social media isn’t just for our private lives, but businesses are also recognising the value of engaging with their customers and/or selling their products or services.
It’s very easy to moan about social media and its dark side but here are ten great things about social media.
- Keep in touch. During the pandemic social media was a lifesaver for so many people. Unable to see people, we could connect with family and friends and even talk to them. For the many people who were totally isolated and alone, this was the only reliable and safe way they could connect with other humans.
- Make new friends all over the world. Due to the different groups and pages it is possible to make new friends from anywhere in the world. Social media opens up our space where we live, to see how others live, enabling us to make worthwhile connections and have conversations with people we would never otherwise have met.
- Connect with family members you didn’t know you had. Sometimes you come across people with the same name as you, and just by a brief conversation, or noticing something on their profile realise that you are in fact related! If you are interested in ancestry, this is another great way to be able to contact people that you are related to.
- Grow your business. Social media is a great way to connect with your clients and potential customers. People notice what you are posting, what you saying, and seeing what you do. If they like what they see, they are far more likely to engage with you, and take an interest in your business. You can post images of you working, images of your team and images of you out and about in your business – all things to draw people into your business world.
- Find people who like the things you do – find common ground. There seems to be groups on social media for all types of hobbies, and interests from knitting to photography, to fishing, sports – you name it, there is probably a group about that subject. Some are ‘how to’ groups, some discussions and chats, some are just there to support. The great thing is, you can join in as much as you want, or just watch what is going on, and again, you meet people who are also interested in the same thing as you – however bizarre!
- Speedy communication. Social media gives us access to quick and easy communication, with whatever part of our lives we are wanting to connect with. We can connect with friends via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, message on Instagram and we can connect with business people on LinkedIn. Because there are so many ways we can connect quickly, sometimes, it is difficult remembering where we received a message from!
- Helps news travel faster. Social media is great for community and local interest groups, especially when it comes to helping find someone’s pet, or even when people go missing. Because of the huge reach that the media platforms have, when people share, in a couple of seconds a request to find someone can be shared around thousands in an area.
- Keep you on track with goals. Talking about belonging to groups – one of the great things is that you can share a goal, and other people in the group can help keep you on track, checking how you are doing. It also keeps you on track yourself, because you’ve ‘put it out there’ – you can’t make excuses if you haven’t done what you promised.
- Build fans and showcase artistic talent. Social media is a great place to be able to showcase your work and build up a fan base who will keep coming back to see what you done recently. You can keep them updated with events and new pieces of artwork, or publications, or song releases.
- Promote worthy causes. If you support a charity you will gain a far wider reach by posting on social media than you ever would by poster drops, or putting fliers around locally. You can engage with people from around the country, or wider afield if you want to. Plus, you can even set up links to your Just Giving pages, or other types of funding sites.
If you want to learn how you can make an impact by use of video for your business, which can be used on social media, then here is the link to my next PR power day on 6th July 2022: