Social
networking plays a tremendous role in today’s world. The use of social
networking has allowed friends to connect across the globe. It has allowed old
friends to reconnect and continue friendships. Judith
Donath, associate professor at the M.I.T. Media Lab, explains:
“social networking
technologies make it easier to keep up with a large circle of acquaintances and
meet new people. They provide a venue for online socializing, as well as for
coordinating in-person meetings.”
With
sites such as Yelp, consumers can get reviews from other consumers. There is an
inherent trust when you read a fellow customer’s review. Social networking provides
a wide range of opinions and perspectives. There is more information floating
around than ever, and individuals can use this information to their advantage.
Company’s
are latching on to the growing trend of social networking and they’re taking
advantage of it’s ease of use and it’s limitless potential. It has become a
free form of marketing. What better way to get your product noticed than to
have actual consumers talking about them…and all for free. Product promotion
can now be done at an enormous scale. Aside from promotion, companies can now
learn from social media. Customers give feedback and companies can make their
services and products better as a result. If customers don’t like a product,
companies will know about it and they can react accordingly.
Another
use of social networking involves job recruiting. Linkedin allows businesses to
search through profiles to find the right employee:
“Linkedin says users
include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Typing keywords into
a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality
candidates that she can't find elsewhere.”
Companies
can also use social networking as a tool for employees.
“IBM, for instance, has
created an internal social network site, “Beehive,”
to encourage more collaboration and communication across teams.”
Social
networking has the potential to increase production, communication,
collaboration, and efficiency.
Of
course, social networking is not without it’s negatives. Some are afraid that
sites such as Facebook and My Space are replacing old-fashioned face-to-face
communication. Another fear is that addiction to social networking is adversely
affecting the health (physically and mentally) of today’s society. From a
business standpoint, exposing too much of yourself can be extremely harmful for
your career. Many individuals have not been hired because of their “social
images,” and many employees have been fired because of something they say on a
social networking site.
I
believe that the next step for these technologies is the growth of mobile
social networking. With technological advances (things like the iPhone and
tablets) that are connected to the internet 24-7, social media now travels
wherever you go. For instance, you can take a picture of food from a restaurant
with your iPhone and post the picture on Yelp, or Forkly. Individuals can also
use apps like foursquare to “check in,” announcing to the world their location.
We are no loner hunkered down to our PC’s from home to connect to the world. We
are free to connect anywhere we please. Whether for good or for bad, social networking
is here to stay. I believe that this is only the beginning. As long as people
have opinions, social networking will evolve and grow. We are getting more
information, better deals, and better services. We don’t just hope for these
things, we expect them.
Sources:
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