THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Around 2004 -2005 we witnessed the birth of new technological communication tool called social network media joining the other internet technologies. From that time, the influence of social media sites has grown and as it stands now statistics has shown that people access social media sites such as Facebook more often than any other internet site, not even the famous Google!!!

Social network sites has influenced the way we communicate and think, the way companies do market and sale their products. Currently there are many social network sites such as Facebook, Google+ (just recently launched by Google to cope up with Facebook), Flickr, Photobuckect (for sharing photos only), MySpace, twitter, YouTube and among other sites.

With the invention of the internet, communication has become very cheap and easy. Social media sites communication has become so cheap that one doesn’t even need to make a call if they want to communicate with their loved ones!! Using social media sites enables more people to communicate/interact freely and cheaply than making a conventional telephone or mobile call because the cost associated to access a social media is cheap compared to making a telephone call. This has led to many people migrate from using telephone/mobile calls to using social media sites. You can tweet or post what you thinking. With social media sites like Facebook having the facilities of making free calls do we see telephone being phased out? Cost saving measure for companies and individuals. Millions of people are connected with their loved ones with social media sites. In short social media sites connect people globally.

This has also influenced big companies who have moved to catch up with their online audience/ customers. Big companies have resorted to move onto social media sites so as to keep in touch with their clients. These companies now have created accounts with social media sites such as twitter, Facebook, Google+, Flickr, MySpace not only to cope up with new technological trends but also to market and advertise their products and services because they have seen this as a new business model. Through creation of adverts (though it has got a price tag) these companies have managed to reach out to large customer base. Profits have gone up. Recently, reports came out from the USA that an employee was sued by his former employer to pay thousands of dollars after he resigned from that company and joined another one on the basis that he has a lot of customers on his twitter account. The suing company said he has gone with a large number of customers which will have an impact on the company’s revenues. They reach more than intended customer target.

Big media houses such BBC, CNN, New Post, and Washington Post among others have created an account on social networks sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube just to stay in touch with their audiences. This again has influenced the way news is disseminated.

In conclusion I would say, social networking sites have influenced the way we communicate, share our thoughts and the way we do business. This is just another power and influence of technology. Go tweet and post those thoughts on Facebook now!!! With technology everything changes.