The Blog on Branding

Social Media: The Business World’s Best Friend or Enemy?

Although many of us are unwilling to admit that we are so obsessive about these new social websites that we have set them as our homepages – it is undeniable that this new wave of social websites has provided for a new cyber forum in which we can:

• Make new friends
• Stalk the friends we already have
• Learn about complete strangers’ opinions about anything we desire whether it be the new Star Trek movie or a pair of jeans

“Learn strangers’ opinions on everything from jeans to Star Trek…”


As the world becomes smaller with the advent of social phenomena such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, a 15-year-old high-schooler can be connected with the CEO of a major company with just a click of the mouse.

Such easy access to clientele has never existed before, so it is natural that the business world feels the need to take advantage. By identifying these new cyber technologies as “social media”, individuals and businesses are able to use them to follow potential clients, market their products and see the opinions of customers first hand.

This article covers:

• What is social media anyway?
• The Losers in the Social Media Game
• The Winners of the Social Media Jackpot
• The Future

What is social media anyway?

The term social media denotes the shift in how people are able to research, read, and share information.

It can be described as the unification of sociology and technology that takes place when people interact with each other in order to discuss a plethora of topics that can range from current events to the latest product on chickdowntown.com. In other words, social medias such as Twitter and Facebook allow people to connect on the web to share info and create personal and professional relationships.

In all, we can see social media as the “democratization” of information in which the normal internet reader becomes a publisher, able to share thoughts and opinions freely on the web.

The Losers in the Social Media Game

The exponential increase in the use of social media in everyday life has allowed some companies to be negatively affected by being ousted for their inferiority.

One quote that describes the nature of social media perfectly is “What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube”; just as people can’t do anything stupid without it being posted for millions to watch on YouTube.com, companies cannot hide their incapabilities behind huge marketing budgets any longer.

If a consumer has a problem with a product or service, it will take 30 seconds for them to make their opinions available to the world. If companies and CEOs don’t realize the impact that a Tweet can have on the sale of their product, they can be hit by the social media train and not even realize it.

“What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube… YIKES!”

The Winners of the Social Media Jackpot

Even though there are many losers, there are many who benefit immensely from the use of social media. Since this type of media is run by the people rather than the PR managers of huge conglomerates, it is inevitable that the truth will come out eventually.

As a result, while the true colors of the companies who are ripping us off are shown, the good companies with the good products are able to receive negative feedback through Facebook statuses and comments and Twitter tweets and work constructively to improve themselves.

Since millions of people log onto YouTube, check their Facebook accounts and Twitter each day, these companies are able to receive this feedback in great numbers at lightning speed and without using a middleman to do the research for them.

The individual consumer is a winner as well due to the infinite amount of information readily available at his or her fingertips. Because the entire web is connected, one person is able to complete a task for millions of people and redundancy is virtually eliminated as a person can learn almost anything right from their home computer. For instance, a few people can attend the new Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh and provide a review for millions of online users.

There is no doubt this will create incredible laziness in the consumer, but it will definitely get rid of the feeling that we all feel after leaving a restaurant with horrible service or a vacation spot that looked nothing like the pictures we saw online.

“Some businesses are hitting the jackpot with social media.”

The Future

We have already seen the magic that can be created by social media through Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 election. By using social forums such as Facebook to keep his image in the mind of every user, we were being fed his campaign every time we logged on without even realizing it. Then when you add hundreds of Obama “bumper stickers,” statuses showing the opinions of millions of users, and even Obama “gifts” that users sent to their friends, you have one victorious election.

Despite the promise that social media has already shown as a way to successfully market a product, or even a person, the future will most likely hold even more successes and power for the social media world. People are now are using these social media outlets as a more reliable resource than top search engines such as Google.

It seems that many would rather search for the opinions of their cyber peers on Twitter than read an article on Google; so, it is inevitable that powerhouse companies like Google would attempt to partner with Facebook and Twitter in order to maintain their monopoly on the cyber search world.

The merging of companies, addition of thousands of new users to these forums each day and continuation of the easy, accessible nature of social media will no doubt create an even larger, more connected web world for us all to obsessively enjoy in the future.

Danielle Naretto Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.