prclass

Social Media is said to be the “father of blogging.” Blogging is, well as you probably know a rapidly growing form of communication not only among the publics but professional as well. There are many different forms of Social Media. The main types I researched were Podcasting, Wikis, and Social Networks.

Social Media is “rewriting the rules of communication.” Social Media has revolutionized how we communicate with one another and how we are able tom communicate with one another. In terms of content distribution alone, it is having a huge impact economically. You used to need many more people for producing media. For example TV stations need to hire a lot of skilled people to write, edit and broadcast content to give out information to the public. Newspapers also had to hire reporters and writers just to produce as well as sell their product or news to the audience. With how popular and financially reasonable computers and other digital technology is becoming and simple it is becoming to acquire technological knowledge; it is much easier for people to produce their own information by means of video, words, images or audio.

It has not only changed the production but the distribution of content as well. After production comes distribution, once you have content you need to be able to distribute it to your audience. A technology called RSS (really simple syndication) has made it much easier for people to access means of social media such as Blogs, Podcasts and Community Content. RSS allows people to subscribe to a means of social media. Once the people subscribe to a Social Media means RSS also makes it possible to notify a “newsreader” of new content available and makes it possible to acquire the information without having to go directly to the site. Another popular and over-looked means of distribution is search engines. Try and have your content (whether it be Blogging, or Podcasting) linked to a popular site. For example if you have been Blogging about the environment and the affects global warming is having on it, then CNN does a documentary on Global Warming, searches for that documentary will be connected to your Blogging site.

I came to the conclusion that Social Media has a great impact in our society in both our social and professional lives. It affects our personal lives with how connect we are globally now. With blogging alone it is possible to know what is going on the other side of the world, and with community content and social networks it is possible for people on opposite ends of the world to give feedback on their topic of interest to one another. It is only going to go forward. Social Media is only going to expand and become used by more and more people, technology is advancing and at the same time becoming more easy to use. It is going to affect us professionally, especially those in Communications and PR gravely as well, with how we advertise and communicate. It is no longer necessary for a business professional to fly across the globe to attend a meeting with clients or audiences, that can all be done through technology now whether it be community content, videoblogging and podcasting. We are becoming a very technological dependent world and it is only going to grow. The only thing I wonder if what could possibly be next?