The advent of social media

                                                           
                                                    The advent of social media 


Social media are Internet sites where people interact freely, sharing and discussing information about each other and their lives, using a multimedia mix of personal words, pictures, videos and audio.

Prior to the revolution of Social media, people used to communicate via Telephone, Fax, Post, Telegram, newspaper, radio etc. Accordingly if a businessman wants to advertise about his product to the world to make the world his customer he had to go through tedious, time consuming field work. He had to build hoardings of his product, ask the television to publish his product which was very costly and his major investment went in these things. In this process the entrepreneur didn’t get to know what actually customers or the outer world say about his product because monologues communication.

            By the end of 20^th century social media became sovereign in marketing techniques!

Social media are in many forms which include blogs and micro blogs, forums and message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, tagging and news, writing communities, digital storytelling and scrapbooking, and data, content, image and video sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence. As of today 40% of the total population of world visits internet on regular basis. Facebook , Twitter ,Myspace etc are the prominent websites which people visit daily. People from elite group to middle class or a old age politicians to school going teenager prefer to get their daily share of news by looking at stories  and update posted by their friends on FACEBOOK or from people they follow on TWITTER , instead of reading news websites. Social media has brought about profound change in the way in which we interact with each other as well as world at large.

            The backbone for this wide spread enhancement of social media is because rise in technology. People find it easy now to visit any site around the globe by just moving a figure on mobile. Every type of information is available to man‘s tip of finger. Iphone, Smartphone are the examples of it.

            Companies have benefited the most by this progress of technology, social media. Companies of every kind like small scale industry, start ups, big multi nationals, Film industry, Political parties have started embracing the power of social marketing. A entrepreneur can publish his product to hundred’s and thousand’s people very easily.

 Social media taught the entrepreneur that

“You are not selling your business , you are creating relationships with communities”

If people feel you are their community they will support you & recommend you to their friends. Social media has helped business of all sizes to discover that there is great value in listening & engaging with customer & other relevant people. Entrepreneur gets to know the market’s demand, customer’s need, and entities at proper rate. He can reach out to his customers without any painstaking.  At once it was monologues one directional now it has become two-directional dialogues. Customers can convey their requirements and if they want any changes in the product  to the owner. Owner gets to know customer’s reaction for the same, that too  with very low cost communication mode.

                         

            Social media also influences our buying decisions as companies now leverage their platform, which consequently has a considerable impact on our purchasing decisions. For example:-If a person is in search of new Smartphone he can just visit websites like flipkart.com etc and gets to know the rating, reviews about the piece which he wants to buy. Hence companies approach has changed according to all this revolution happening around the globe in marketing world, Companies like 24/7 REAL MEDIA have also emerged where advertisement of some company can be their own product.

In film industry a film’s success now a days is dependent on the reactions of initial audience who place their views on social networking sites. The Campaigns like of Anna Hazare were carried with the help of such media network because of viral nature of social media. A leader can convey his opinions to thousands of people through Facebook where the youths (future of the country) be influenced.