Social Media Networking and Businesses Drummond-Networking 1

Social Media Networking and Businesses

Nicole Drummond

Wilmington University

Senior Seminar

Mrs. Havens

Author Note

Nicole Drummond, Senior at Wilmington University, New Castle, Delaware.

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Abstract

Social Media Networking Sites have become extremely popular worldwide. Along with

the popularity of these sites, come opportunities in many different ways. People are

now being noticed for many talents, businesses are being promoted and growing

enormously because of this, and people are connecting and communicating more than

ever. With recognizing all of this, it is also shown that jobs, such as a Social Media

Coordinator are being invented.

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Social Media Networking

The internet is used for many subject matters but there is one specific area that has

grown enormously just within the past few years. That area I am speaking of is, Social

Media Networking Sites. Sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, YouTube, Blogs,

Twitter, Skype, and many, many more are used every day by millions of people to keep

in touch with one another and stay in contact with family members and friends. They

are used to update people all over the world with what is going on in your life, what

interests you, where you work, what you are thinking, and this all done through pictures,

status updates, blurbs, and videos. When people think of these sites, they usually think

of what I just described, however, companies have started to realize how big these sites

have become and have started using them to expand their businesses. Social media

networking sites can be used for not only socializing but to help make a business grow.

The internet was first introduced in 1962. “The first recorded description of the social

interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by

J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He

envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could

quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much

like the Internet of today” (Internet Society, 2011). It has now been 49 years since then,

and along with the years came the people using the internet. The number of people

have grown just like the years. It is shown that there are about 1,966,514,816 (Miniwatts,
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2010) people that use the internet currently. People started to do business right away

via the internet by using e-mail and sending messages back and forth to one another at

literally one click of a button. The way technology has grown over the past 49 years has

helped with forms of communication through the internet, and the biggest form of that

yet is these social media networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs such as, Blogger

and Wordpress, are all sites where you can add friends from anywhere in the world and

then update as often as you like about whatever it is you want to talk about. Therefore,

everyone is getting updates about your life and know what is currently going on. You

are able to tell when it is someones birthday, anniversary, or any occasion the person

chooses to reveal on these social sites. Along with getting updates about someone’s life,

you can also see a lot of videos and photos from their lives as well. To be able to

receive and send pictures and videos makes it nice for family and friends who live

across the world from each other and are able to share these special moments of your

lives with them.

One other great benefit of these social networking sites is that you are able to create

‘event’ pages. You can list that you are having an event such as, a birthday party,

running for a cause, going to a sports game, and invite who you want to. This feature

on these social sites make it much easier to get a group of people together; you can

post the event in just minutes and it is completely free compared to using actual

invitations in the mail. These social networking sites really make it easy for people,

strangers even, to be able to talk whenever they want and most of them are free or cost

very little.
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There are about “500 million active users” (Facebook, 2011) people that are signed

up for Facebook, and there are so many people on YouTube that People are watching 2

billion videos a day (YouTube, 2011). There are 344,124,450 (Miniwatts, 2010) people

that live in North America; comparing the numbers show just how many people really do

use these websites. People started to realize that there were a lot of others using all

these sites just like them, and some went as far as to promote themselves through

these pages. People started to make videos of how good they can sing to hopefully be

noticed by a record company, others started to show their acting skills hoping an agent

would run across it, and some people would show how well they were at

photography/graphic arts by uploading a portfolio of their work hoping someone,

somewhere would notice and give them a chance because they like their work. Well,

these people were onto something because so many individuals have gotten jobs,

became actual famous singers and actors because of these videos. An example of one

individual who did this and is now famous is, Greyson Chance. “After recording an

unbelievable performance of Lady Gaga's “Paparazzi” at a talent show, he uploaded it to

Facebook and YouTube -- and had no idea what would happen next. In just a few short

days the video received millions of views, and he became an Internet sensation

overnight!” (WAD Productions, 2011). This what brought to Ellen’s attention and so she

brought him to her show to reveal him to an even broader audience and is now the first

artist to be signed to Ellen’s new record label, Eleven Eleven. His whole life changed

because of the social media sites, and he is not the only one. There are people who get

noticed all the time because of the traffic of people that visit these social sites.
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Although these social networking sites started out as a way to communicate with

one another or even a way to promote yourself, businesses all around the world have

realized just how big of a deal these sites have become and have recently started to use

them to promote their businesses and events that the businesses hold.

The issue with businesses now using these social networking sites to their

advantage is that it is causing them to not need certain people in their company. For

example, businesses are now starting to hire people for a position usually titled, “Social

Media Coordinator.” A Social Media Coordinator is usually someone who promotes the

Business on these social networking sites and tries to reach out to as many individuals

as possible to get the company noticed. The Coordinator also does some of the

marketing and planning for events within the company and then proceeds to post them

on the social sites. However, by having this new coordinator companies, no longer need

their advertiser(s), marketers, or even promoters. Although, this is not ideal for those

individuals who are losing their jobs due to this new position that companies have been

and are adding to their companies, it is a move in the right direction, in my opinion.

Also, while it does eliminate some jobs it opens up others in different areas. The

company would most likely want to have a graphics art specialist for digital media, a

photographer, an IT for any HTML coding, and a social events coordinator.

It seems that so much good as come from these social networking sites, although

some argue that they are a bad thing because a lot of negative situations have come

from the social networking sites such as: stalking, loss of jobs from putting up bad

photos, relationship breaker because of people cheating on their spouses, and many
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other situations. However, all of those could be avoided if the individuals did not put

themselves into that kind of situation and used the right privacy tools provided within the

social sites. In comparison of the negative situations, it seems as though there are

many more positives. People now connect with family and friends from all over, people

start relationships from being able to talk and connect more through these social sites,

and businesses and people are able to promote themselves and get much more

feedback.

The social networking sites have grown so popular within just the past few years, I

can’t even imagine what will come within the next decade. Business are already getting

much more attention because of these sites, it can only get better from here on out.

Since these sites are growing so rapidly, so are jobs being provided to individuals all

over. As of currently, there are about 2,775 (Career Builder, 2011) jobs open for Social

Media Coordinators on just www.careerbuilder.com alone, meaning there are most likely

a lot more jobs available on other job sites, and I’m sure the numbers for this job and

others will only grow as time goes on! This whole social networking sites are definitely

going to be around for a long time, and because they are going to grow bigger so will

everything else in our lives!

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References

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Employment & Careers Site . Retrieved February 28, 2011, from

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Greyson Chance - The Ellen DeGeneres Show. (n.d.). The Ellen DeGeneres Show: The

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http://ellen.warnerbros.com/greyson_chance/?adid=menu_music

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February 25, 2011, from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

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Leiner, B., Cerf, V., Clark, D., & Kahn, R. (n.d.). A Brief History of the Internet. Internet

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www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

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