Embrace the Social Media - Essay Example

Embrace The Social Media Saad Aljebreen Tiffin ENG141 Anastasia Krueck-Frahn 8 June Social media has become the new reality of the modern world, and this reality is mainly because of the fact that it has more than 2 billion subscribers who are active on it on almost daily. Because many people use social media has made it very difficult to be ignored, because doing so would mean that these individuals would become disconnected from the world. Social media has come to affect all sectors of the society from all the classes to industry and politics, and this effect has happened in a manner that has made it extremely important for all of them (Fitzgerald, Kruschwitz, Bonnet & Welch, 2014). Many people and businesses have gotten involved in social media because it is the means they can swiftly get information as well as to gauge the mood of the social networking community concerning them. Often, the upper classes of many societies have tended to be extremely disconnected from the rest of the society, and have created a situation where they have completely lost touch with the realities of the wider society. However, with the advent of social media, this situation changed because the upper class has the means to interact with other classes within the society and be able to gauge the mood concerning public opinion as well as get an insight of life other than that within their own class. This is because people from the upper class of society, such as members of royal families, have come to embrace social media for ensuring that they are, not only in touch with their people, but also for the sake of ensuring that they remain popular (Mutua, 2013). Younger members of royal families have been found to be extremely active on social media, and this activity accounts for their popularity among those individuals who use this form of media. Many of them feel that members of the upper class of the society are working hard towards reaching out to them through social media, and have worked towards the resurgence of popularity among those individuals in the high class who, before getting involved in social media, did not enjoy plenty of popularity. Social media has also become the means through which the upper class can gauge the mood of the rest of the society and through this assessment be able to change in a manner which enhances the society’s opinion of it. The middle class is currently the biggest user of social media, and it can be argued that it has been possible because of their ability to purchase gadgets necessary to interact through this media (Okoro, Hausman & Washington, 2012). The ability of the members of this class to interact through social media has revolutionized the way people all over the world interact, mainly because of the fact that a large number of social media tools tend to be developed with the middle class in mind. The fact that the members of this class are continuously increasing has made it possible for businesses target them as potential markets for their products, ensuring that most of the purchases currently made online are done through social media. In addition, it is a fact that because a large number of the middle class tends to be among those who use social media the most. They are able to influence and become influenced by it, and has led to many of them becoming actively involved in activities which they would otherwise not have pursued (Greenberg, Yaari & Bar-Ilan, 2013). Among these activities has been the fight for human rights as well as the need among many members of this class to become more actively involved in other aspects of the society, such as politics. In the Middle East, for example, the active participation of the middle class in social media was partly responsible for the mass mobilization of the people, who became active participants in the protests that became known as the Arab Spring (Abootalebi, 2013). Social media has made it possible for plenty of interaction between different sectors of the society, and has happened in such a manner that it has ensured that people from all walks of life, from different cultures and backgrounds, are able to communicate at an unprecedented level. This new ability to communicate has led to the further development of what has come to be termed as a globalized world where people from all over the world come together to ensure that they fight for different causes that affect all of them in common. The middle classes of many countries, because of their growing spending power, have managed to use social media as a platform to advocate for their right to political power. All over the world, it has been seen that a large number of the political agitations as well as the revolutions which have taken place have been spearheaded by the middle class through social media. It is currently a fact that businesses all over the world cannot remain competitive if they are not in one way or the other involved in social media, and because of the fact that most of the biggest transactions, such as the use of online ordering and payment, tend to take place through social media. In addition, businesses have to embrace social media because it is the means through which they can effectively market their products because social media has ever-increasing users (Cunningham & Hunt, 2010). Social media users have become among the biggest potential market for various goods and services all over the world, and has ensured that businesses are increasingly attracted to it as a means of breaching this market. The whole idea behind the development of advertising in social media was because, in the fast developing world, it was the best means of reaching all potential customers. There was the realization that, in the whole of human history, social media was the fastest developing means of communication, which, had managed to reach the whole of the world despite its being barely more than two decades old. Moreover, social media has become the means through which business owners and CEOs of most corporations can actively interact with their customers, and is done as a means of ensuring that they remain current with the mood of their customers (Brandel, 2008). In addition, social media is the means through which they can be able to get ideas for the development of new products because social media has become a platform where the interactions between companies and their customers has led to innovative ideas that have come to revolutionize the way products are designed and offered. Embracing of social media has ensured that a majority of people all over the world have come to be affected by it in one way or the other. Through this media that new trends emerged as well as being the means through which news and other forms of information are easily available to the public. To reiterate, social media has been embraced by the upper classes of many societies because they have tended to be extremely disconnected from the rest of the society, and has created a situation where they have completely lost touch with the realities of the wider society. In addition, it has been found that members of the middle class are currently the biggest users of social media, and it can be argued that is because of their ability to purchase the gadgets necessary to interact through this media. Finally, in order for businesses all over the world to remain competitive, they have to, in one way or the other, be involved in social media. References Abootalebi, A.R. (2013). Democracys fourth wave?: Digital media and the Arab Spring. Choice, 51 (4), 720. Brandel, M. (2008).. Social networking goes corporate. Computerworld, 42(32), 25-27. Cunningham, W.H. & Hunt, J. (2010).. IBMs delicate social media balancing act. Risk Management, 57(8), 30. Fitzgerald, M., Kruschwitz, N., Bonnet, D., & Welch, M. (2014). Embracing digital technology: A new strategic imperative. MIT Sloan Management Review, 55(2), 1-12. Greenberg, S., Yaari, E., & Bar-Ilan, J. (2013). Perceived credibility of blogs on the internet - the influence of age on the extent of criticism. Aslib Proceedings, 65(1), 4-18. Mutua, M. K. (2013). The role of social media as a collective intelligence platform in project implementation: Case in Kenya’s vision 2030 flagship projects. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3(8), 384-396. Okoro, E.A., Hausman, A. & Washington, M.C. (2012). Social media and networking technologies: An analysis of collaborative work and team communication. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (Online), 5(4), 295. Read More