Maybe it happened so seamlessly that you never noticed the transition. Perhaps it works so well, you never thought to take a step back and say, wait a minute, this is different. But take a look around. Our news, in large part, now comes from social media.
Considering that generations of people have received their news from one of only three main media sources; print, radio & television, the inclusion of a ‘new’ kind of news is quite incredible. Have you ever noticed the amount of news reported on your favorite national news station that actually comes from Twitter or Facebook? Or how about news stories centered around a YouTube video or noteworthy Tweet? Social Media is not only creating news, it’s disseminating, delivering and providing news. Apparently, social media is our future in more ways than one.
Because of this new ‘news phenomenon’, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are now becoming search engines for people to find the information they seek out. This transition is quite compelling, as it was not necessarily the intention of these sites to become the news finders of the net. But low and behold, the likes of CNN, Fox, and similar news fronts jumping on the social media bandwagon as fast as they can.
This very apparent change has far-reaching implications. As we delve further into the idea of news that isn’t controlled by any one interest, one company or one conglomerate, and as we see news that is delivered directly from the source, rather than through a filtered lens, the power and potential of social media is perhaps more than we ever thought possible. For any one person’s business, life, or way of taking in and putting forth information – social media is the ‘new’ news front, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
In fact, over 40% of all links from Twitter go to news related sites. What does this mean for small business? It means that social media will become more and more important. This is fact as the numbers of the trends keep skyrocketing forward. A recent “State of Small Business” report by the University of Maryland said:
Social Media Adoption By U.S. Small Businesses Doubled Since 2009.
They also said that customer engagement is the biggest social media usage, with 61% of the respondents using social media to identify new customers.
If you would like to learn more about how to use social media to promote your business. Please visit us at http://practicalsocialmedia.com.
