Social Media Goes Mainstream

Reading an article in the New York Times this morning I noticed this article, “Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens.“  Strangely enough, social media technology mostly gained traction with teens and university students but much of it has gone mainstream.

Social Media – Luddites vs Evangelists

I had dinner with two of my brothers yesterday and, as is often the case with me, the subject came around to social media. One brother, the oldest, is interested in understanding what people are talking about and asks questions about the uses of Twitter and so on. The other brother, the youngest, is skeptical. No matter what I say, I expect he’d still be a doubter – after all, I’m one of those ‘social media evangelists’.

Here is what I said in response to their questions.

Drive traffic to your website

One of the most beneficial uses of social media is to drive traffic to your website. If you’re selling something or need people to learn about you, then social media should be a large part of your strategy. If you’re not engaged in social media, you’re missing a gigantic opportunity. It would be a bit like saying, “We’ll run our business but I don’t want to be bothered with telephones – they take up too much time.” Okay, I know, that’s a bit extreme but you get the idea.

Instead of being brother number two and looking at social media as a new-fangled thing that is cluttering up the airwaves, you could turn that whole thing on it’s head. To misquote a well-known 1960′s politician could I suggest, “Ask not why you must learn about social media; ask what social media can do for you.” (I apologize in advance for this terrible misquote!)

And finally, perhaps the original of the quote above was brought to mind by the death of Ted Kennedy early this morning. I hope health care reform will not die with him. By the way, I first read about Senator Kennedy’s death on Digg. RIP Ted Kennedy.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 9:53 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.