Twitter & Social Media

How do we keep up with them all?
Social Media Landscape

 

Working at a growing mid-size PR agency, I’ve learned a lot about the demands of the PR industry. At Taurus, I’ve been confronted with the challenge of how to not only market our clients but ourselves as a business. Our weekly meetings are constantly bringing up what we need to do to expand our brand awareness and how to use our content. The answer is social media.

One huge trend is the push for social media. Social media is any media where the content is produced by consumers where they in turn become content producers as opposed to content consumers. Some big names are YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and blogging. Being of the Generation Y persuasion, society expects that I should be a major social media consumer/producer. After all, I was part of the first class of Facebook users back in the fall semester of my freshman year at university in 2004. I remember not knowing why people were rushing back to their dorm rooms to see who added them or who ‘poked’ them. Catching on like wildfire, the Facebook phenomenon consumed not just college campuses, but the world. Even my technophobic mother has an account! I can proudly say that I have over 1,500 ‘friends’ on Facebook ranging from my besties to people I unknowingly walked past in high school or university.

As you are reading, blogging and YouTube have become part of my social media universe as well. I started blogging back in 2006 when I set sail on Semester at Sea but failed to keep up due to ‘too much fun at sea’. Revived in 2008, I took blogging seriously since I actually have a readership and then added YouTube clips to keep that readership growing.

I’ve tried to avoid Twitter at all costs. I just felt like it was an extension of the ‘Status Update’ on Facebook. With my 1,500 friends, why do they need to see the same update on a different platform? Wouldn’t it be easier if all these things were on one medium? Well, they are – on Facebook, but it’s not enough when businesses and even job applicants are trying to differentiate themselves. One question I keep getting at interviews is, ‘So what do you know about social media?’ Marketing myself as a PR professional, I have to be on top of what’s hot. What is hot is social media and all the little ornaments hanging off of it.

Today, I had to look up a reporter who had nothing on a Google search except a Twitter account. I couldn’t view her profile unless I registered with Twitter. Once again, the demands of the PR profession win again and so I am now part of the Twitterverse.

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@ShadiyahLim