I am not very familiar with Social Media Platforms but it seems to me that most of them (except for LinkedIn that is mostly directed towards businesses) can be used to a certain extent for both personal and business.
In my opinion, Social Media Platforms are becoming more and more popular for both personal and business use.
Nowadays (with the Internet World) life moves so fast, everyone is always so busy trying to catch up. No one seems to have much time to socialize or keep in touch anymore.
Social Media gives this new generation of busy people the opportunity to stay connected and socialize (even if it is only virtually connected) with the little time they have.
For business use (specially small businesses) Social Media Platforms offer a great opportunity for them to advertise with a small cost and keep a direct and personal relationship with the customers.
Before marketing was a luxury only to businesses that could afford to advertise on newspapers, magazines, radio or TV. Small businesses had no chance competing with big corporations. Thanks to Social Media this has changed and now any business has the opportunity to become known and successful.
Social Media gives this new generation of busy people the opportunity to stay connected and socialize (even if it is only virtually connected) with the little time they have.
For business use (specially small businesses) Social Media Platforms offer a great opportunity for them to advertise with a small cost and keep a direct and personal relationship with the customers.
Before marketing was a luxury only to businesses that could afford to advertise on newspapers, magazines, radio or TV. Small businesses had no chance competing with big corporations. Thanks to Social Media this has changed and now any business has the opportunity to become known and successful.
Instagram seems to be best for personal use since it is based on a quick interaction of sharing pictures. Of course, you could always post pictures to promote your business but it doesn't offer much interaction.
Facebook seems to be the most popular for both personal and business use. It lets you share pictures, videos and interact with your customers and friends through messages or discussion groups.
For personal use Facebook is great because you can reconnect with friends you lost in the past, keep in touch with family and friends and also find new groups of friends that have the same interests as you.
For business use it is also great because it provides you with tools to share with customers what your business is all about, promote new products and advertise events. Facebook has this huge community of "possible customers" already connected.
LinkedIn seems to be directed to companies and professionals only, providing them with tools to interact and connect like: companies posting jobs, professionals looking for jobs, companies looking for other companies services, etc.
For business use it is also great because it provides you with tools to share with customers what your business is all about, promote new products and advertise events. Facebook has this huge community of "possible customers" already connected.
LinkedIn seems to be directed to companies and professionals only, providing them with tools to interact and connect like: companies posting jobs, professionals looking for jobs, companies looking for other companies services, etc.
It seems to me that Social Media Platforms will keep growing and becoming more and more popular in the future. If we want to stay "connected" we will need to find out which ones are out there, understand how they work, what they are for and join them depending on our needs and goals.
Very detailed and insightful post, Priscilla! Each platform certainly has their fair share of uses and can be dependent on who is using it and how. I agree that it's allowed many people to stay connected these days. Think of how many friends we've lost contact with through grade school, moving, old coworkers, or anything! With social media you never truly have to lose complete contact now. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Priscilla,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, being connected these days is the way to go. And being connected on more than one has better results for a business.
Good Read!
Very well written. I will say I've found Instagram to be very useful for my dad's art business. Granted that is a very visual based business. As alluded too it is also wonderful for personal business too. Looking forward to reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Priscilla!
ReplyDeleteI agree, that there area so many different ways now to use all these platforms, with exception to LinkedIn, as you mentioned that is strictly for businesses it seems.
The way people can use these social media sites for business is endless because everyone has realized how much people love to get to know people within the business as well as the company and what they have to offer. I've noticed more and more that companies are using personal anecdotes and individuals within the company to attract people to their sites and their social media platforms. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
This class should be so interesting in that aspect of learning how we can optimize these platforms in different ways for business!
- Nicole B