Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace, Hi5… What’s it all about? The social network phenomenon has expanded over the past few years and has become a part of every contemporary PR practice.
Like many of my peers at university, I joined Facebook to interact with other students and to share my daily on goings with the rest of my online ‘friends’. There was no particular reason to why I joined, other than curiosity and boredom. But before I knew it, I was completely addicted to this cyber craze and like many others, I found myself checking my profile every single day.
The website was set up in the US by four Harvard University students with the intention to encourage students to get to know one another online. It was once restricted to only university members but it now has over 400million members worldwide and has become a social network phenomenon.
I was soon joining ‘Fan Groups’ and ‘Discussion boards’. I was being invited to events, clubs and being advertised products and services targeted specifically to my age, location and interests. I had no idea that I was being targeted or that I had become duped by new age online public relations.
Since starting Public Relations course, I have been looking more closely at online activity on corporate social networking pages. As well as Facebook, micro blogging site Twitter has become a huge part of PR practice.
These social sites are an organic way of monitoring the reputation of an organisation, consumer reactions, product evaluation and recognising market trends. Companies are also able to create a personality for their brand and allow their audiences to communicate directly.
I recently joined twitter but have not been able to get grips with micro blogging or better known as ‘Tweeting’. I’ve realised that is an acquired skill to be able to ‘tweet’ effectively, in order to communicate and interact with the online community.
Whether or not social networking is a trend that might soon die out is yet to be seen. It is growing more popular every day and reaching global masses.
It has become an acceptable way for both consumers and businesses to be self indulgent and creates a personal relationship between the two. It is no wonder that it has become of all major brand marketing and PR strategies.
Like many of my peers at university, I joined Facebook to interact with other students and to share my daily on goings with the rest of my online ‘friends’. There was no particular reason to why I joined, other than curiosity and boredom. But before I knew it, I was completely addicted to this cyber craze and like many others, I found myself checking my profile every single day.
The website was set up in the US by four Harvard University students with the intention to encourage students to get to know one another online. It was once restricted to only university members but it now has over 400million members worldwide and has become a social network phenomenon.
I was soon joining ‘Fan Groups’ and ‘Discussion boards’. I was being invited to events, clubs and being advertised products and services targeted specifically to my age, location and interests. I had no idea that I was being targeted or that I had become duped by new age online public relations.
Since starting Public Relations course, I have been looking more closely at online activity on corporate social networking pages. As well as Facebook, micro blogging site Twitter has become a huge part of PR practice.
These social sites are an organic way of monitoring the reputation of an organisation, consumer reactions, product evaluation and recognising market trends. Companies are also able to create a personality for their brand and allow their audiences to communicate directly.
I recently joined twitter but have not been able to get grips with micro blogging or better known as ‘Tweeting’. I’ve realised that is an acquired skill to be able to ‘tweet’ effectively, in order to communicate and interact with the online community.
Whether or not social networking is a trend that might soon die out is yet to be seen. It is growing more popular every day and reaching global masses.
It has become an acceptable way for both consumers and businesses to be self indulgent and creates a personal relationship between the two. It is no wonder that it has become of all major brand marketing and PR strategies.
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