Notes on The Social Media Revolution

Read elsewhere my comments on blogs as social media. The blog was one of the first widely-available web 2.0 tools, and it became (and still is) an important social media, online communication tool.

Social media involves the task of communicating online. How does one "Stay connected" or stay in touch with what is happening with someone or something on the web? This often involves "following" a person or an organization or institution. "Following" usually involves an app, and here are some of the more important ones:

• Facebook
• Twitter (There are many other messaging apps, like Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp)
• Tumblr
• Pinterest
• Google+
• YouTube
• Flckr
• Vimeo
• Please let me know of more examples.
  

I'm going to focus my comments on Twitter/Facebook, but they apply equally to all varieties of online social media. Social media can be an effective community/coalition building and support tool. Twitter, for example, allows like-minded people, for example fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, to converse, exchange thoughts and ideas and thus participate in an online community. These are people that most likely would not communicate/converse or bond together if it was not for the social media tool.

There are all kinds of examples of this coalition building in the social media world. For example, on Facebook I belong to groups that focus on World War 1, Northern Virginia history, Lehigh Valley history, the Fallen Flags railroads, etc. I couldn't do that if I didn't have access to these organizations (some are formal; others informal) on the web. For example, the Anthracite Railroad Historical Society meets the second Friday of every month in Quakertown, PA, but those are meetings that I simply can't attend, but I can still be part of the group online by following the organization on Facebook and Twitter.

Simply put, social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, are very powerful community-building, communication tools. They build an audience, for either an individual (like Taylor Swift) or an institution (like the NAACP). Almost all museums use these tools to connect to supporters. Have a look at, for example, Oatlands Historic House and Gardens. At the bottom of their web page, you see all the connection symbols. This allows Oatlands to stay in touch with supporters and other interested individuals, and social media then becomes an important tool for fund-raising.

Audience is important. Whether you are in a presidential campaign or whether you are gathering support of a historical association, you need to build an audience, and that's what social media allows you to do.

Besides the most obvious apps, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, it is also possible to use YouTube, Vimeo, Flckr (and there are probably others) to build a community. Remember that the choice of app is largely determined by the target audience and goals of your work.

There is a downside to social media, and that is the appearance of trolls, spammers, flames whose only goal in life seems to be to ruin the lives and work of others. There are many individuals on the web who could care less about the social norms or proprieties or polite discourse, or even what the actual discussion is about. This is a massive problem, and there is no good solution to prevent it when you commit to using a social media app.