Independent study - BBA Hospitality Management - Research Paper Example

The social media affects communication in diverse sections and social groups in the world. Instead of mass communication, there are mass communicators (Runion, 2010). This is because the power and authorities of traditional communication channels are losing their rigours and new and smaller channels are developing through the social media like Twitter and Facebook. In December, 1995, there were only 16 million internet users and this represented just 0.4% of the worlds population at that time (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2011).

However, today, 30.4% of the worlds population is hooked onto the Internet and this represents 2.1 billion people (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2011. Many people spend a lot of their time online these days. Some go online to check their mails whilst others maintain links with interest groups, family, friends, old school mates and other relatives living overseas through social media networks. In her assessment of her statistics on the social media industry, Evans identifies interesting facts about the social media network (2011).

She identifies that there were 21 million Twitter users in the United States in 2011. She states that 40% of bloggers describe themselves as professional so they spend a considerable time working on the internet. Secondly she indicates that 60% of all Fortune 500 companies conduct business over the popular social network site, Facebook. Facebook has over 800 million users around the globe this makes it one of the biggest concentration of the potential market that exists for all goods and services (LA Times, 2011).

This means that more and more people are spending their time on the Internet and on social network sites. Also, a vast community of professionals are evolving, who spend time and acquire skills which is sufficient to help build the social network as a good place to do business. This therefore means that the social network are appropriate outlets through which businesses can operate and make profit.