Does Social Media create social effects?

There seems to be an “effect” from using Social Media, an effect that can be described as a social effect, at least it has an impact on consumer/ users. When consumers/users are taking advantage of Social media and feel the power it has and the fear of failure too, it is obvious that such media create an effect and even a social effect.

Birdsall (2007) has noticed that Web 2.0 (Shown in my blog: "Is there a relationship between Cloud 2.0 and Web 2.0?") as a social movement has become an internal part of the daily use of many consumers. Several social actions take place in this environment and the almost unlimited possibilities to take contact/ engage and exchange information goods or services with other users allow the creation of online communities. These online communities are formed around demographics or special interests which again create openness in the environment (Beer and Barrows, 2007; Birdsall, 2007).

Generating content and exchanging the content in its many forms as copy reproduce and re-mix information on the Web 2.0 domain is a normal practise. Practices of this kind lead to the democratization process of the technology, information and knowledge (O´Reilly, 2005), which leads to a user participation on a new level, with users becoming contributors, reporters, commentators and editors. The possibility for the users to engage and exchange in a transparent conversation with other users and even industry and politicians has become a reality in the special interest groups and communities. Social media/networks have become part of specially the youth culture but other parts of the society have adapted the possibility to exchange information, goods and services quickly. Politicians have lately used the social media/networks with success. The American president candidate now president of the USA has used social media/networks to deliver his message of change to the entire American population. Herby he has understood the power of the communication platform and the communities that he has created to reach an even broader part of the population more precise and with the possibility to get a reaction from his voters. A similar situation has occurred in Denmark during the last national elections. During the Danish election, a competition among the politicians whom would gain most friends on FaceBook, was launched by the media– it could be an indication of who would win the election! The power of gaining friends is still controlled by believes in the various political doctrines, but also by the ones who could create the best content and stories –content fuels Social Media interaction[1]. In Business It is getting uncommon that businesses create such communities themselves inviting people to become members. What has been common is that users of certain products creates communities by themselves to discuss the possibilities of the product and create new ways of using the products on or even find some of the negative sites of the product. A recent example of this is the FaceBook group[2] created by users of the Novo Nordisk (Insulin Company) insulin product Victoza who by using the product has found that they are loosing weight without any site effects using the product. One person has lost 41 kg of weight in 6 month.

Is the above examples an impression of how to be social or is it socializing? One thing is clear if you have the right content and can produce a good story you will get a social or socializing effect out to your audience and this is not just small talk this is a start to do business.

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[1] Comes from MarketingProfs Article of the same name

[2] Article in the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende, August 6. 2010 (Business section page 4-5)