KEDM Broadcast - Social Media

Social Media

In today’s business environment the scope and influence of social media is enormous.  According to Social Media Today, Facebook has over 1.15 billion users. Twitter and “Google Plus” each have over 500 million users.  The variety of social media platforms permits immediate access to information and offers the ability to spread that information quickly.  For a small business owner, harnessing the power of the social media can be a daunting task.

The environment we call the Internet constantly changes.  New platforms emerge frequently to replace older ones and they do so quickly.  For example, in 2003, MySpace was the up and coming social media giant and Facebook was little more than an idea.  In just over a decade Facebook became the largest social media platform and MySpace is a social entertainment platform with a declining user population.   New technologies emerge redefining how people work and play in cyberspace.  New and more specialized platforms come online every month with a unique set of followers and influence. 

A number of factors are driving the growth.   Portable devices like smart phones and tablets allow us to carry technology with us wherever we go.  Portability coupled with the growth in communication networks allows people to stay in constant contact with social media platforms.   Whether in our vehicle, sitting in a restaurant, or attending a sporting event, people stay connected.  The expansion in the number of social networks creates niche groups with specialized functions offering something unique.  Twitter emphasizes microblogging using short posts; Instagram is for online photo and video sharing, while Pinterest targets theme based image collections.  This is not an exhaustive list of social media options, but does illustrate the diversity in social media sites.  Finally, simplicity of design and improvements in the product tools enable users to control the content appearing on social media.  Much of the content on traditional websites can be controlled and managed by end users with limited assistance by technology specialists.

Often small business owners question the rationale for spending the time and effort on social media.  The answer to that question is always the same – your customers, both current and prospective, are there.   Americans spend an average of 37 minutes daily on social media which is more than any other major Internet activity including email.  Over 60% of that time is not spent at the desktop, but rather it is on smartphones and tablet devices.  Social media, then, can be a powerful tool to build awareness of your brand and your products or services.  Because the Internet never closes, a business can deliver images, videos, text, and mail which can be viewed at the leisure of the user.  But, the process goes beyond simply delivering content.  Social media is about building community and that community then sharing your information with others in their sphere of influence. In something akin to watching a spider web grow, one user shares with another who shares with another and so on driving interest into what your business is doing.   It takes time to build, but can pay dividends over the long term.

With so many social media platforms available, we’re often asked which one is best for a business.  No absolute answer exists for this, but here are some things to consider.  First, look at the social media channel and see which one best aligns with your product or service.  Second, don’t try to do everything.  It is much better to be relevant and successful on a few channels than to be mediocre across many.  Next, work out a strategy and plan for implementing your social media activities.   If you need help with this or any business problems, we have resources to help guide you.

Chester Gould's vision

A reminder was delivered to me this morning about how far technology has come during my lifetime. It is easy to remember black and white television, knowing which rings belonged to grandma's telephone on the party line, and marveling at Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio. Still, to imagine that futuristic vision of technology would come to pass in my lifetime is humbling.

In many ways, I've had a front row seat to observe the changes. Watching the space program of the 1960s was the beginning as the transitor and miniturization became the trend of technology. My father purchase a Texas Instruments calculator around 1970 (a TI-SR10 I think). It was remarkable how those small red diodes could do all of the stuff that slide rule could and do it without those pesky human errors. Advancing on through my time in the Navy, I was able to watch our ship transition from morse code and HF frequency teletype signals to satellite relay networks that moved communications traffic with virtually no errors. An undergraduate degree in data processing introduced me to mainframe hardware and subsequently to microprosessor technologies. With the advent of the Internet, I watched as we expanded the interconnectivity of the world and continued the path of technology to smaller and faster.

It is against that backdrop of immense change my reminder came this morning. Sitting at my desk, unable to join several friends on a ski trip to Crested Butte, CO , I accessed a web camera sitting atop a restaurant at the base of the ski slopes. That I was able to look at the same mountain they was skiing was in small way comforting. As I watched though, it became clear three of the people standing at the base of the lift were my friends. A couple of text messages followed by a call from a cell phone one of them was holding and we confirmed with a wave that technology has linked us in a way Chester Gould could only imagine.

Grandma's ring was 2-shorts.