Is icecream fattening? Is the iphone a hot ticket item? Does the sun set in the west?

If you answer no to any of these questions then, you’re obviously from another world, and social media does not even apply to you.

On the other hand if you’re from Earth, and call yourself human then social media or new media is earth shattering.

Social Media is just about growing your business, it’s not just about breaking down the walls barring communication between people all across the world. It’s not just about social change, or grass roots action.

Social media is 200 years in the making. It’s fitting that I’m writing this article on the 4th of July.

Our forefathers (at least here in the USA) forsaw a future where people were free to govern themselves so long as they did not hurt another. In other words we the people, for the people.

For the longest time we’ve been controlled by the media – not always for bad, but not always for good either. What we believe is in large part do to what we digest from news sources.

In the founding of America – it wasn’t a possibility that information could travel as fast as it does now, so it was more difficult creating a true democracy. In our day with the way information travels democracy is becoming the only option.

For instance over in Iran – the people want to live free lives, the government is going to fight it teeth and nail, but some day they will win their battle, and they will join the rest of the civilized world.

As people learn to communicate and overcome their differences more and more wonderful things are starting to happen. Racism is on a decline across all races and creeds. Old media’s hold over communist nations is subceding because thanks to sites like facebook and twitter they can’t block all information from getting out.

Today the media is in the hands of the people, as is the government. With media that’s free-er and created by the people we see more truth, and we begin to see stories from all angles – we don’t just get the opinion of a few people in power but op-eds from hundreds and thousands of independent bloggers.

Social media is truly an amazing thing. It’s beautiful. It’s democracy in action. It has the power to topple repressive regimes, and may be the only thing to even stand a chance at quelling the wars that plague our world – heck it might even bring about world peace someday.

New media is also about getting information faster. Twitter is 140 characters of bliss. It’s pretty just a headline and a few small comments if that. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it’s beautiful.

I think we can all agree that in the information age, there is definitely an over abundance of information. Do a search on just one keyword phrase on google and you’ll bring up hundreds of thousands if not millions of webpages on the subject.

With so much information it becomes extremely difficult to sort and sift through it all. Part of new media is also finding new ways to display information so that we can digest it quicker.

Example: RSS feeds. Instead of visiting a hundred of our favorite blogs, now we can subscribe to them and get updates just like we receive email.

Still not sold on Social Media?
One successful twitter campaign like the #moonfruit campaign, can increase your traffic, and company exposure by as much as 7x or more!

Here’s a list of 5 reasons why you should give social media a chance:

1. It’s free(for the most part, and if not free it’s cheaper than most other methods of marketing)! – Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, youtube, and other networks generally require $0 out of pocket to get started, compared with the amount of money it costs to get an ad on tv.

Example: An ad on tv costs hundreds of thousands and even in the millions to produce and direct it, and then more to buy air time.

An ad on youtube – is generally very cheap, can be lots longer than a commercial, they are usually more engaging, they are two way in that viewers can leave comments on them, and they are viral. A good youtube video even professionally made could set you back $1000-2000 total to film it, and you can post it for free.

If it go’s viral then you can get a million views for next to nothing, if it doesn’t go viral you can still get a couple thousand views for free.

2. It’s trendy. Whether you embrace social media or not you will have to recognize that many of your competitors will. Also generally speaking if your target market is younger than 40, then your target market probably has a facebook page, and probably spends more time on twitter and facebook than watching tv.

3. It’s viral. I mentioned this earlier but I feel I need to give it more attention. On youtube people can share and embed videos on their own blogs, on twitter they ‘retweet’ it, and on facebook they can share and embed video content as well.

The word ’social’ revolves around the word ’share’. When we ’socialize’ we share our experiences with each other. Social media is all about fast & free sharing of media (which includes: videos, pictures, blog posts, podcasts, and more…)

4. Real Time. Not much can happen in the world without Twitter hearing about it first. Given this is not always a good thing, as it can also be the beginning for hoaxes, scams, and rumors.

Socia media should be taken with a grain of salt, when using it as a news medium – all news should be verified, and should be considered rumor until verified by a viable source.

Example #1: Within minutes of Michael Jackson dieing it was all over twitter. People couldn’t believe it. That was a true event.

Example #2: According to some sources Jeff Goldblum and another actor died last week – both of which were false.

5. Portability. Currently the iphone is the number 1 cellphone in many countries. On the iphone users have easy access to all social networks. This means users can pretty much tweet and share stuff on facebook wherever they may happen to be.

Some things to Consider:

Before you jump head first into social media as a business I would highly recommend that you create a strategy. It’s important to decide your target audience, and which methods are best to network with them. It’s also important that you diversify your efforts across many streams of media (blogs, pics, audio, video, even games and applications).

You should also have a clear idea of what Success means for you. Without a clear focus on your goals in social media you will never reach your full potential. There are social media apps and websites being launched almost every minute. It can get very overwhelming, so much so that you may find it an impossible taskm and you may find yourself giving up before you ever have a chance at success.

Social media is something I’m passionate about, if you fear that you don’t know enough about the industry, or where to start there are many great consultants out there. Don’t be afraid to contact them to get the ball rolling.

One final thought:

Don’t be afraid to help new consultants get their foot in the industry. Many times they will be much cheaper than tried and tested consultants, but they will be able to benefit immensely from the on the job training, and your company will reap the benefits of having a consultant that is passionate about being a successful social media consultant, and one who will beat probably any price that you get from their competitors.

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