Why Social Media?

1^st of all many who will be reading this post will be on any one of the Social Media platforms. Interestingly all of them reading this will someway or the other be routed to this post via one of the Social Media Platforms.

Agree or not we are all Social beings and we are proving right in a different way, Not socializing in Public but via the Web. Turn on the radio, TV or for that matter any advertising media, end of the clip/poster there will be something like “Follow us on Twitter” “Like our page on Facebook” and so on. Did you guys ever wonder what is so great about social media?? I am not taking any complicated stories here, but what level of reach “Why this Kolaveri” has attained is all because of Social Media.

Today, all Global Companies ranging from Consumer products to IT products & services to Manufacturing companies to the Recruitment Companies, they all do invest on the Social Media. Even the Healthcare fraternity no longer ignores the Social Media.

People obtain information, education, news and other data from electronic media and print media. Social media are distinct from industrial or traditional media, such as newspapers, television, and film. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, compared to industrial media, which generally require significant resources to publish information. Apart from Email, Instant Messaging which have been extensively used, a few of the other examples of Social media are the Twitter, Facebook, etc. Social media is a waste of time if you don’t utilize it in the right sense, Playing games or just chatting over these sites will just waste your time but what you have to make sure is it is make use of it by gaining information, proper contacts in all walks of life, Getting your news/post to maximum number of people etc.

A recent report indicate that Indian’s are now spending more time on social media sites. Social Media in India is growing at close to 100 % and is likely to touch 45 million users by the end of 2012. As subscribers are now coming out with cheaper internet packages this figure is slated to grow much further.

The flip-side of all the virtues of Social Media is that there seems to be no universal guideline on usage of the social media. Though we have increasingly more social network users the question that stands out is how familiar they are with these social networks and what precaution have they taken to safeguard themselves against any information leak or against their vulnerability. Off-late, it is been felt in various forums that we need legalized checks to rein in the opinions being expressed, intrusions of privacy all of which may hurt people and their sentiments. Companies like Twitter & Facebook is taking steps to combat this and its ultimately in the hands of the user who uses it properly and not click on things which are in the 'SPAM' category and get trapped.

My suggestion is just this, No matter what people say you are going to need this in the years to come if you want to be successful. Think about it and you will know what i'm trying to convey here as i do not represent any company and its just the person in me that is requesting you.

The post cannot end just like this, I need to give away my Social Media reach as well right?

Follow me (Twitter) : @iMishaal

Blog : The very blog you are reading this post, If you are that illiterate, here it is (www.mishaalhk.blogspot.com :P )

LinkedIn : http://in.linkedin.com/in/mishaalhk

Youtube : http://www.youtube.com/user/Mishaalhk

Twitter Tips & How to decode Twitter Psychos?

As an avid Twitter user i have come across lots of different people in this platform over the last 2 years. Now before getting into how you decode the Twitter Psychos let me give you a few Twitter Etiquette which you need to follow for a peaceful 'twittering' career. They are as follows;

-> No ASL Business in Twitter, People who really want this and is obsessed with this can go to this one site called www.orkut.com (:P)

-> Since its a 140 character business, Everything needs to be short with a Hash tag (#) to highlight the topic.

-> If its a late reply that you are making to a tweet, do it with a '#' referencing to what you are replying to, He/She may not recollect what that reply was for. Twitter has brought in a feature wherein you can know what that reply was for but this happens only in the Web and a few application, many do not have this feature.

-> Dont Follow people un-necessarily. If only a few people follow you and you follow a thousand people or more, many would assume you are a spammer. An in Twitter spammers are considered SATANS. :P

-> Humour is accepted but not tweets like "Just felt the Earthquake, it was damn fun" , Atleast a person reading the tweet has commen sense and knows that you were scared to death and just trying to show off giving a humour quotient to it.

-> Also, you dont you occasionally need to use the rest room? Please dont take your phone in there. There have been quite a lot in my timeline who has an update for everything from the 1st ball of a cricket match till the end of a match or if Shakti Kapoor or whoever makes an entry or an exit in Big Boss 5 or Big boss 25. You are literally getting some of your followers bored with one single topic and dangers/chances of you being blocked/unfollowd is very likely

-> Twitter is becoming a very common platform and chances are likely that your Boss/Manager/Parents/Relatives are tracking your tweets. You dont want an additional sheet of your tweets (Tweets containing offensive words against your Office/Workplace/Manager) along with your appraisal form My recommendation is to keep your account PRIVATE and enjoy cribbing, but make sure the people who request to follow you are not the people who are trying to hide from.

-> Stay within your limits, something what you can learn from the basic thing in twitter, the 140 character limit. That being said do not have more than 2 tweets with "...Contd" , It just doesnt go with the essence of twitter.

-> Whenever you send a DM (Direct Message) make sure you inform the recipient as well but mentioning him/her. Most twitter users are not used to checking their messages and its only the Mention tab that they look into (Unless they are using an external app like Tweet-Deck)

Now that you have known the Do's and Dont's (Well, according to me and my knowledge) lets see how do you deal with a few different people in Twitter, A friend of mine @Kofykat (Twitter Handle) wrote this post on her latest post titled "Twitter behaviour Decoded" where after reading thought i would write something on how to handle these people.

-> The Spammer : Just leave them alone, Dont ever reply to their tweets and block them as soon as you identify they are of this species.

-> The Orkutiyan : Basically this class of people are just kids or wannabe's who have recently got into facebook and have been wanting to increase their standard in their part of the world and join the Twitter world, Dont even think of following these class of people. Let them mention and RT and follow you, Just leave them un-noticed.

-> The Inspirationals : These quote centric people are just loosers and are just a mere Cut & Copy via Google so this are not Mahatma Gandhi's or a Martin Luther King, so these people dont make any sense either.

-> The RT-ers : People who increase their twitter count by counting on others, basically just RT-ing is their forte. Just mere loosers who have no thought of their own and depend on others, Request them now and then for stop RT-ing on a frequent basis and if that doesnt work out, BLOCK/UNFOLLOW them.

-> The Expert :These are ideally the class of people you would want to follow but then their extreme expert opinions can get you crazy, things like iPhone or Android kind of topics, being a layman you would be wondering what language is this he/she is speaking, There is no wrong following them very informative so i wouldnt quite club them into the Psycho category.

-> The Stars : Pure Bakhwas, First and foremost advise would not be following them. Basically there are wanting for more fans in order to make their promotions of movies and other endorsements easier and we are falling trap to it. I understand and know that Ra One is going to release via TV and i dont want @iamsrk to keep tweeting about it day and night.

-> The Foul language Tweeter : A complete NO NO for me, i wouldnt want to follow someone who is just tweeting all non sense and fill my time line with obscene tweets, people might think using those language makes them sound cool and all that but DUDE, that era has ended.

I dont know if there has offended anyone here or not but these were just my views and done in discussion with @Kofykat ( Blog : http://mychocolethandbag.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/twitter-behaviour-decoded/ )

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