Moving beyond the superficial
A friend of mine who is new to social media pointed out the other day that she found much of it to be rather superficial. She found that the interactions with other users on Facebook lacked depth. As we began to discuss Twitter, my friend stated that it is rather narcissistic to expect other people to really care about what she is doing right now. This appears to be a rather common reaction from people who are joining the world of social media later in life. In many ways, this critique of social media is quite accurate. However, what my friend was missing was an understanding of the power which social media applications have to communicate to a wide and ever growing audience.
These applications, as utilized in the recent presidential election, can help to collect people together around common causes and engage them in action towards a common goal. Each social media application has its own strengths and purpose to serve.
However, social media applications are not some kind of magic pill which do the work on their own. They take a well defined strategy to make the most of them. Simply creating a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter is not going to help a business or group reach their target audience. Put that tool to work as part of a larger strategy with clearly defined goals and you have the mechanism to engage with the community.
One example which I encountered was NASA’s use of Twitter to keep people engaged in the activities of the Mars Phoenix rover. Now they are working to keep that involvement going by getting their online community to help name the next rover. By using social media, NASA interacted with people who might otherwise have all but ignored the scientific endeavors of the Mars Phoenix project.