But Do You "Like" It?

Social media occurs to me as valuable and necessary. It’s one of the most pervasive ways that people (and organizations) choose to communicate now. As a social being, I want to be part of the conversation. Sure I might still prefer to communicate in person versus updating a blog or posting to Facebook, but I respect social media’s role as a popular and effective way to connect with others and stay in touch—one that impacts the way we speak as well as listen.

Social media has become a powerful tool for marketers and companies to gain insight into consumer behavior, customer feedback, market needs, and business opportunities. Social media can also be used to waste time, insult others, and avoid potentially more productive endeavors. As with most things, I believe you take the good with the bad, though I maintain that the utility of social media far outweighs its less desirable manifestation.

Personally, most of my social media use to date has been through Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, and, of course, Wikipedia. I generally use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family. I’ve also noticed in recent years that some of my digital friends tend to develop expectations around who should be aware of certain things about their lives based on what they’ve posted online, so I try to stay reasonably up to speed.

Professionally, I’ve seen how specific companies seem to be balancing the advantages of empowering their workforce to help promote goods/products/services via social media while surrendering some of the control they’ve traditionally held around the particular ways employees convey information about the company. We’re in an interesting era, in that people are spending more and more time online, and making purchasing decisions based on what they learn from friends, peers, and strangers. Thanks to the Internet, every customer is a potential “advertisement,” and every employee can be a company spokesperson—for better and for worse.

When using social media (personally or professionally), I also try to make sure I have something to say that others might reasonably be interested in. There’s a lot of content out there, and I find that more isn’t always more…