How Powerful is Social Media?

Through the vast advancement of technology, people nowadays depend highly in the juices of technology. We are able to accomplish things fast and efficient through the high tech gadgets and machineries invented. We are also able to connect with different people in diverse culture and race through different social media marketing.

Businesses are one of the great benefactors of social media marketing. Because as we trace history, before we are having a hard time promoting our products and service because of the limited resources we all have. The most popular way of advertising is through the Trimedia (TV, RADIO and Print). Fortunately, many methods are available to help us generate more traffic and eventually translate the lead generation to our target audience. read more

It used to be that social media and search engine optimization were mutually exclusive domains. People just did not see the connection between these two.  If you do social media campaigns, such as interacting with your customers on Twitter or maintaining a Facebook page for your business, there is really little need for SEO.  Your Facebook page and Twitter account often get marketed on different channels via different means.  Nobody really expected to get a high ranking for their social media pages, unless you or your business has a very unique name.

On the flip side, SEO practitioners know fully well that social media will not help their attempts at getting a higher ranking for their websites.  Most social media sites are no-follow, so even if they have really high page ranks, they do not really offer your site anything. Those that do offer some amount of link juice have been spammed and abused by fellow marketers that it is nearly not worth the effort to be on these sites anymore. read more

The last few years have seen a revolution in terms of online marketing. The rise of new, disruptive technologies such as peer to peer and social media have led to a fundamental shift on how business is done. A model that emerged as a possible answer to these problems is the Freemium paradigm. In essence it relies on gathering a large following and then trying to capitalize on it with low yield methods. Its adepts claim that the high volume will make up for the relatively low profit margin.

Promising as it sounds, this model has lead to multiple business failures. However, there are success stories as well. It’s obvious that the Freemium model CAN work, but only if you know what you’re doing. read more

Late Sunday evening my Facebook news stream was bombarded with posts exclaiming Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed. An elite operation that required tactical precision took out Bin Laden and his supporters over the course of minutes. The raid was live streamed to the President and his cabinet but a very different picture unfolded over Twitter.

Around 1 AM as a US helicopter closed in on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, an IT consultant some miles away live Tweeted the entire raid unaware of what was really going on. Sohaib Athar under his handle @ReallyVirtual Tweeted that a helicopter was hovering around the area and later crashed from gun fire.

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In order to protect American citizens from threats beyond their comprehension, it looks like the US Senate is proposing creating an “Internet kill switch” which would grant the government the authority to turn off access to the world wide web (similar to what Mubarak did in Egypt).

The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  The bill — called “The Protecting Cyberspace As A National Asset Act of 2010” S.3480 — was approved by a Senate panel this week.

S. 3480 would create a new government agency called the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications.  The NCCC would have sweeping powers to control the Internet, including the ability to shut down the web for a 30-day period.  Considering that at least 60% of Americans get their daily news fix from the Internet, this is a staggering proposal. (The Blaze)

Unless our world is under assault from a killer virus from the future (whose purpose is to turn machines against mankind), it’s hard to justify giving the US government this power, especially since a lengthly shut down could literally kill off companies that rely upon the Internet in order to survive.

Hopefully American bloggers (or anyone for that matter) will consider calling their Senators and politely ask them to quickly kill this bill.

While a few organizations are mobilizing opposition to this bill, hopefully some of the tech giants (notably Google, Facebook, Automattic and Twitter) will use their influence to alert users regarding this bill as having the Internet shut off without warning.

Wow, what a couple of weeks it has been for Social Media. Heralded as helping spark the revolution in Tunisia by giving people the voice to call the populace together against corruption, Social Media is now being fought by the Egyptian government.

Yesterday the Internet was effectively turned off in Egypt but little could be done to contain the fallout.

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Of course you all know who we refer to as the father of the web, right? – The one and only Sir Tim Berners – Lee. Berners-Lee is set to go on a trip to Africa, particularly Kenya and Uganda, to meet with several government leaders, educators and development workers. Part of the discussions that will be held during the meetings will be on various local web initiatives relating to health and education.

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I’m proud of myself. For 48 consecutive hours I survived without the Internet. It wasn’t easy.

As a product of the hyper-connected digital age, giving up my computer and pocket-sized device for an “extended” period of time, wasn’t an easy decision. But given my recent bout of blogger’s block, and an increasingly alarming inability to stop the simultaneous tape recorders in my head, I knew it was time to power down. And you know what? I have a hunch it was the best 48 hours I’ve spent in quite some time. read more

For the first time, the internet is a stronger source of national and international news in the US than the newspaper. This according to a study from the Pew Research Center, with a summary published online containing a lot more information for the number crunching media enthusiast. According to the study, 40% say that they get most of their news from the internet, while just 35% cite the newspapers as their source. Now, that doesn’t mean that they are bypassing the New York Times, they might just be reading it online. Television is down from 74% in 2007 to a mere 70% (!), and by far the strongest source of news in the US.

For young people, however, the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television. In September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied mostly on television for news than mentioned the internet (68% vs. 34%).

If I was in the television industry, I’d be worried about now.

When the Internet first started to become mainstream, I was at the age when nothing mattered – except girls. Everyday I’d walk down the block to my buddy’s house. We’d boot up his beast of a computer and log on to Prodigy.

Seven letters/numbers stood between Queens, NY and the rest of the world: NCJG34B. My first assigned screen name.

Once logged in, the mission was simple: Find girls of the same age, initiate e-mail contact, exchange pictures through snail mail and eventually meet. Of course, this meeting had to culminate in some sort of ‘action,’ or else it was considered a bust.

If it worked like a charm back in the early 90′s, I can only imagine the number of casual hookups the Internet is responsible for today. It seems TOO easy. But isn’t it always when you’re happily married, sitting on the sidelines.

What’s my point? Here it is: I think anticipation has left the building.

As we move towards an on-demand society, I can’t help but wonder if something is lost with all of this immediate gratification. TV gets paused, albums leak weeks in advance and I can find the value of my home and the picture of an Ex in about eight seconds. This ‘information now’ trend has been spearheaded by constantly-updated blogs.

Information overload is here, and I’m kinda thinking it’s too much. Every good geek worth his or her salt loves data. But is there a downside to having access to too much stuff? Your thoughts please…