Everyone is talking about social media...

As I continue my research regarding Social Media, I am finding many articles in newspapers and business journals addressing the topic. Articles in the newspapers talking about how communities use social media to connect and how businesses are using social media. The business articles talk about how social media is very effective form of PR/Marketing, especially in such financially uncertain times. Social Media is free, or very cheap if not free, and businesses can promote, advertise, and gain feedback from customers easily. However, some people are concerned that you will lose control of your strategic message since it is online and anyone can comment on it. On the PRSA website you can find different conferences and seminars regarding social media and how to incorporate it into your plan. It seems that social media has taken over society, in both personal and business minded ways. I still think it is weird that there is very little scholarly research on the topic. If it effects so many individuals, and almost every aspect of thier lives, I think we should be researching social media more. We need to know what kind of impact social media is going to have on the way people communicate and how businesses communicate with their publics.

Researching Social Media

As I am researching Social Media I am finding it difficult to find scholary research on the topic. It seems like popular press is taking more notice to Social Media then the academic community. When I searched Social Media on google my search returned 148,000,000 results and 17 notes. When I was looking through academic research I had a hard time finding 25 results. The results were very scattered and did not focus on any one aspect. Many articles focused on the use of social media in politics, mostly the latest presidential election. I found some articles on how PR can use tactics involving social media but these did not include any research or were not based on communication theories so I am not sure where these could fall into my research. I would like to know why social media has had such an impact, in relation to communication. I know the power social media has in regard to its use in PR but why. How did social media take a front row seat in today's society? Does this form of communication have an impact on interpersonal relationships? Has Web 2.0 taken over for face-to-face communication? The academic community needs to catch up with the rest of society and realize the impact social media is having on society and communication today.

Diving into Social Media

I am beginning my exploration of social media and am finding it a bit overwhelming. There is just so much! I am doing research about social media for a school assignment because I thought it sounded interesting. It is new, fast paced, and often changing. Almost everyone that owns a computer is effected in some way by social media. I just did not realize the number of social media sites available. There are the obvious ones of course, like Facebook and Twitter, but beyond that the numbers seem to be endless. There are social media sites for every type of hobbie, business, interest, etc. Since I plan on persuing a career in Public Relations I am focusing on many of the social media sites concerned with P.R., such as propenmic.org. I believe that social media is essential to PR today and will continue to be important. Since social media reaches so many people, PR practitioners would be doing themselves a disservice if they did not utilize such a useful tool.