Social Media as our Platform?!

Social Media has grown to become a vital part of the 21st century life.

Media platforms have come a long way since the beginnings of the internet, morphing and changing its ways to fit our needs. So, it is essential that we also adopted a Social Media presence for it to become our platform .

Tuten and Solomon (2018) break down Social Media to four classifications. Which helped me understand the many uses of social media platforms in a much more simple and categorised format. Click on this link to have a look at these simple classifications: http://s3779901-mktg1415.over-blog.com/2020/03/four-classifications-of-social-media.html I find it difficult to pin a specific definition to the term Social Media because of its ever-changing and malleable nature. However, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as a collection of internet-based applications that allow the generation and exchange of user generated content. These applications build on the existing functions of the Web 2.0. I find this definition to be quite accurate in summarising the concept. Social Media today is growing at such a rapid pace and is constantly changing and evolving. Still it stems from the primary movement of Web 2.0. One thing that is important to remember is Social Media is not free. Which confused me at first but come to think of it, it’s true, social media is most definitely costly. You might wonder what the cost is, seeing as most media platforms are free to use. The cost is your valuable time! It takes time to generate ideas, plan, create and put out the final product. Social Media definitely takes a lot more effort and time than what we would anticipate. But with the right use of these platforms, I think Social Media can lead to great success. Using these platforms can be a much more efficient way to reach your audience reach even further. And because Social Media is ever changing and malleable, it is our platform to use and shape to our liking! Thing is to keep it simple and shareable! So, what do you think? Can we use Social Media as our platform?

References:

Kaplan, A M, & Haenlein, M 2010, 'Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media.' Business Horizons Vol. 53, pp59-68

Tuten, T, L, & Solomon, M, R. 2018, 'Social Media Marketing', 3rd ed, Sage, Los Angeles

Image:

Third Door Media 2020, Social Media Marketing, photograph, accessed March 2020,<https://marketingland.com/library/channel/social-media-marketing>

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