Maximize Your Social: A One-Stop Guide to Building a Social Media Strategy for Marketing and Business Success

Chapter 1

Reality Check

The Permeating Trends of Social Media and Social Business

Whether you’re just getting started with social media, revamping your current efforts through the creation of a social media strategy, or wanting to see what ideas I have to help you propel your social media to a new level, it is important to take a step back and make sure we all equally understand the current trends—and therefore potential scale—that social media holds for all businesses. Just as those who attend my speaking events have varying levels of social media experience, I assume the readers of this book range from beginners to experts. Given that the understanding and experience of using social media for business is different from reader to reader, I like to make sure we all start from the same place when discussing the topic of social media.

I like to discuss three main themes when doing so:

1. Convergence of information and communication

2. Social media’s permeation of industry and corporate discipline

3. Big social data and the accessibility of public information

CONVERGENCE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

Let’s make one thing clear: social media was made for people, not for businesses. Representing a brand, your challenge is to engage with others in a medium that was originally created for people to keep in touch with one another. Fortunately, we have seen a shift in the way that people use social networking sites. Today, more social media users are using the communication tools provided ...