Welcome to Planet Social Media!
The countries here go by the name of Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Linked In and Facebook. I beg your pardon… “The United Users of Facebook” (UUF for short). Considering that Facebook has 350 million active users (as of January 2010), UUF would be the third largest country on Planet Earth, behind China and India. It doesn’t take much to become a UUF citizen – just a Facebook account and a desire to connect!
One of your rights as a UUF citizen or a Twitterian is the power to connect online to your fellow citizens, share information and experiences, recommend or rate companies or institutions. Li and Bernoff (2008) call this new social phenomenon – the groundswell - A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other; rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.
In short, people on Planet Social Media are empowered to generate online content and share this with other netizens or cybercitizens. Such an explosion of content seems harmless one might think, but organizations bear the brunt of this. The groundswell is threatening organizations as customers are talking to each other about products and services and redefining brands which companies spent millions of dollars to create (Li and Bernoff, 2008).
This explosion of information compels organizations to be more socially responsible and enhance their product/service standards. Sadly though, sometimes, organizations are unfairly criticized by consumers and customers. Nevertheless, as public relations practitioners, we should adopt a two-way symmetrical model which advocates active listening and genuine dialogue with our stakeholders. What makes our endeavor tough is the disproportionate ratio of PR practitioners in an organization to consumers, and the constant need to keep abreast of technological advances to communicate with our audience. Let's move away from this initial reluctance to embrace technology, for the benefits are many. Ultimately, when our organization becomes a UUF citizen or Twitterian, we become more approachable to our fellow citizens, earn their trust, build relationships and improve our products/services from their feedback.
As PR practitioners, we are not alone in this journey to Planet Social Media. Many of us have made this trip before and succeeded! Join me every week as I come closer to discovering a whole new universe! Packed your bags yet?
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Interesting article Neha. However, how many of the netizens do you think join with the intention of providing sensible information, service or product. Most of them use it for pass time. But yes a mutual effort to improvise might make it a path breaking step using internet.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Sami - often netizens simply post comments to pass time. This is in fact a golden opportunity for organizations to learn about their products/services from end users and tailor them to suit customer needs. However organizations need to discern between mindless, unfair feedback from online users who are passing time, and genuine, useful feedback. Keep your comments coming Sami, and tune in for more next week. : )
ReplyDeleteHey Neha, enjoyed reading your first post. now with social media being used from space (by TJ Creamer aboard NASA Expedition 22 on Jan 22) the planet social media seems to keep no boundaries, eveyone from anywhere is welcome. so all jump in!
ReplyDeleteYou're right Paromita. And thanks for sending us the link to the article about the first 'tweet' from space. The use of social media has truly crossed universal boundaries. : )
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