Being Social Media

Written By Body Wipe Company Tags: social media

 I remember back in 1995 first hearing about someone saying that they were developing a web site. My obvious first question was “what is a web site?” And a few years later, I remember someone saying that they bought something online. My obvious first question was “how do you buy online?”   The speed of technological advancements during the Internet era has been something we have never experienced with prior technology during our lifetime.  But, with this speed, the adoption of new age Internet technology has sometimes lagged with the masses.   As with web site development, it was first thought to be a passing fad, yet over the last 21 years, just about everyone in the business world has a web site. Buying online was very foreign at first.  It took the average consumer years to over come that lack of trust over this “cyberspace thing” not stealing their credit card information or not delivering their online purchase.  Yet, over the last 21 years, buying products online has become mainstream.   Along comes this social media "thing" and again my first question was, "what is it?" Over the last 10 years, social media has become this great connection for the masses. Just like the web site and online buying before, social media has found it’s way into our daily lives.  The Internet opened us up to the “informational” era and now social media has brought us into the “personal information” era, as we share our daily life with friends and family.   It wasn’t too long for the business world to figure out that the mass market had started to migrated away from being sold via the traditional one –way mode of advertising (TV, radio and print) to a different two-way mode of communications between consumer and business via social media.    As business followed the masses to social media, businesses quickly found that social media was a firewall for traditional business marketing practices.  Business needed to become aware of the fact that social media was developed to be “social” and not a platform for business.  It was this very reason that business needed to transform into the social media world by creating brand identity through not selling directly. Wow, you say not selling! How can a business attract customers if they can’t use social media to sell directly? Relevant, attention-grabbing content!