The Power of Social Media: Sharing Knowledge and Free Marketing

It is undeniable to say that Social Media has changed the way we digest information. Every morning hundreds of millions of people, if not more, scroll through their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat feeds to see what is going on in the world. We want to see what our friends are doing, what crazy thing that politician said, follow celebrities, and browse through a lot of junk to find the good stuff. With today’s technology we can do all of this easily. Social Media is used for good and evil, but there is one thing that is universally shared: knowledge.

 

It is incredible how easy it is to share knowledge through Social Media, and the internet in general. A lot of Social Media is used for sharing memes, funny videos, etc., but if we harness the power it places in our hands the possibilities are endless. The most common example is fundraising for an event. I see this often: It’s someone’s birthday on Facebook and they want to raise money for a charity. Facebook makes this a built-in feature and you can pick from many, many charities. You post the status, mention why the charity is important to you, then all your friends and family can see it. I’ve seen people raise over $500 for a worthy cause by doing this, and it only took about 5 minutes of their time. That alone is incredible to me. During the pre-internet times raising that same amount would’ve been a tedious task. But what about knowledge? People love sharing their political beliefs and other passionate topics, but what about other forms of education?

 

One of my favorite Social Media platforms is LinkedIn. I used this a LOT during college and my post-college years. What makes LinkedIn different from other platforms is that it focuses on business news and jobs, a dramatic change from others like Facebook and Snapchat where the mood is lighter and friendlier. If you scroll through you will see news about the stock market, new blogs, graphic designers, stock tips, investments, and whatever else you may be following. This is an amazing tool that everyone should be using, I’d highly recommend creating an account if you don’t have one by clicking here.

 

LinkedIn is raising the bar for Social Media and we should all be excited about it, but we have the power in our hands. We should be using it for good. We can share information that will benefit everyone: great books we read, how to invest your money, how to get out of debt, the best college classes to take, and more. With ‘sharing’ or ‘liking’ this information we can have a ripple effect so hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people can potentially see it. Marketers have jumped on board with this idea years ago and continue to do it. I’m a marketer myself and I use the power of Social Media to get more people to read my blog without spending a dime. This allows me to create more great content and educate people for free, the only investment is time.

 

Instagram and Twitter have also revolutionized the game through hashtags, or maybe #hashtags. These hashtags let you put tags on your posts, like how you would if you were doing SEO (search engine optimization) for a website. Unlike SEO, this is something anyone can do with no training and it is very effective. This allows people, and marketers, to customize who they want to reach out to and what kind of people they want to see their posts. Maybe you are reading this because you saw one of my Instagram posts! Gone are the days where you would cold call someone or approach them on the street. Facebook uses a similar system, but they base everything on ‘likes’ that create various interests and demographics. They use these attributes to make assumptions about what you want and how to market products or services to you through Facebook Ads.

 

Social Media is not to be taken lightly. It is a powerful tool that the majority of the world can access. It’s power has revolutionized how we share information and how information is given to us. It is a vital resource for marketers and businessmen. And most importantly, we can use it to share knowledge and resources that will benefit the world.