Social Media Social Revolution

Social media have proven to be especially good for making connections whether horizontally, between friends, or vertically, between advertisers and consumers and the like.

But social media seem to have the reputation of being a little fluffy; probably because the dominant uses of them thus far have been social in the lightest sense of the term.

However, social media have proven themselves to be a powerful platform for disseminating messages; marketing becomes highly effective when targeted at specific groups using information inputted through social media networks.

And let’s not forget about blogs and forums; often used for information sharing and collaboration.

Social Media for social change?

It’s quite easy to understand how social media can have a huge social impact when we consider flash mobs for instance. Called together through social media, flash mobs do all sorts of wonderful things to great effect.

How can we harness this power for good?

By simply combining the two things that social media are good at: getting people together and information sharing.

It requires only changing the perspective we have of social media and it’s already happening. Social change requires a steady trickle of information, empirical evidence and passionate voices.

All these things meet in social media and what better platform to initiate social awareness and real social change. Top-down social activism requires that people are able to understand and research an issue from the comfort of their own homes and luckily, this is where most first world and wealthier third world people access their social media accounts from.

It’s a start.

There are many ills we need to address and redress and it starts with gathering support by initiating conversation. And that’s what social media does. 

Thanks to έŁέ¢τяøиί¢ έγέ for the image. Follow έŁέ¢τяøиί¢ έγέ's photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/xanxhor/.