Focus & Simplify - Life as an Entrepreneur using social media

So what’s social media? a lot of my clients ask me especially if its a cold call. Since we explain this day in and out i thought to share this with people who may be wanting to find this information as well.Definitely you can go and research about this and there’s a lot of information available on the internet. Some of you reading this may be gurus in this field. I have tried to summaries this for those who may not have the time to go through a lot of material. This is not something that i have come up with. In fact I have read this through numerous articles and while speaking about ChillX.com to clients.

The explanation below has worked for me. Hopefully you could use some of the below points while speaking to your clients and should you have any additional twists to this then please do share this with us and the world so that we can work as a team to get social media recognized throughout India and worldwide.

Most people look at social networks, wikis, bookmarking, blogs, forums, video and other web 2.0 terms and call it social media. This is not a helpfull definition as it can be pretty confusing to a client whose business is not Web related. They prefer a simple down to earth answer instead of making this some hi tech science.
For example, ChillX.com is a social network, but users still micro blog on the network. YouTube on the other hand is a platform for web videos, but it’s also a social network since most users create profiles and get to be friends with others on the platform. WordPress or Blogger are blog websites, but they also act as forums especially when people post comments under a specific topic.

So how do you define social media?
Well there are key differences that we have tried to explain to our clients and these are:

1. Its about people who are online, these people take action when communicating with other online users.
2. When people are Online, they have a larger network at their disposal and can freely express their thoughts, they can make recommendations and no one is there to judge them. Its like telling the world what they feel about a specific topic or product in a less costlier manner. Also as an online user you can easily update your whole network of friends with one message such as update your online status “Busy right now am in a meeting”.
3. Being Online, you don’t need to know someone to get their recommendation. You just get the opinion of a variety of people and then based on these recommendations you as a member can make up your mind. So information is free to use online.

Now compare this Online medium with offline mediums such as television:

Television is not a social media because when watching a programme you cannot share the same programme with your friends, also you don’t have the option to check what your friends are viewing during their free time especially if you are not in touch with them. You cannot rate a programme or recommend it freely to the world. You cannot tag it for others to find the programme easily. You cannot watch the programme at any time that you like.

To put it simply social media can be defined as = medium + a platform + technology that drives it

Social media broadens the reach of the individual and their thoughts and expression. The implication for a business is that through this medium you can let your customers be your brand leaders . Conversations happen quickly, with more people, and are easier to track and act upon immediately.
We hope this post would be useful to every reader reading this post. Should you have any comments to add to this please do as it will help others to understand social media better.