Social Media

What is Social Media? Social Media is a WebSite designed to allow you to interact with friends, relatives, and the general public. You can share information, develop your own space and create your own personality for others to view. It is Interactive and allows you to be in control (to a large degree) or how others view you and communicate with you.

Our IMM Class had the priviledge of having a visit from Wayne MacPhail. Social Media is rapidly growing with Sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and del.icio.us, to name a few. Wayne, along with a very impressive media resume, has become a pioneer in the field of Social Networking Consulting.

Social Media is also catching the attention of Companies and Industry and they are rapidly creating their own unique Social Media Pages. A business may try to start out using some of the social applications to advertise, but soon find that this is frowned upon by the community. To use a social media as a promotion to your company, it has to be created as a vehicle for the community. A company would have to get "involved" by giving back to the community. People that use Social Media discover very fast the motivations if your sole purpose is advertising, you are soon blackballed. A company must contribute to the Outcomes (common good) with, collaboration,community, conversation.

Social media is Social Behaviour based on Social Observation. Case in point, Susan Reynolds and the "Boobs on Ice". Susan is a New Media Consultant who frequently used blogs and various social networking, she is also battling breast cancer. In 2007, after a needle biopsy on her breast, she used frozen peas to help with the pain of the procedure. She then uploaded a picture of her with the frozen peas from that image, The Frozen Pea Fund was launched. People all across the internet were supporting her in the fight and within days, peavators were uploading images of themselves with peas.

De-lic-ious is a social book marking site that moves behaviour from the desktop, to the "Cloud" (internet). Bookmarking allows you to submit your favorite bookmarks and share them with others. You can find out with bookmarks, how many people have tagged it.

Quote from Wayne MacPhail and his talk, You don't use a Social Network, you become a Part of It.

Krista Yeo