Businesses Doing Good With Social Media

In the rush to try to capitalize on the new social media for money-making purposes, businesses have taken a little longer to start learning how to use social media for social good. The good social aspects of any new trend are frequently low on most corporations’ list of priorities, but an interesting thing has slowly begun to happen as businesses have started using the new media. The very nature of this new way of communicating is changing the consciousness of some companies. Their use of corporate social media is forcing them to think about the wider society and not just their own profits.

During the summer of 2009, a business marketing move of www.amazon.com prompted an uprising on Twitter, Facebook and other social websites. Buyers of an ebook version of George Orwell’s book, “1984,” suddenly found the file deleted from their e-readers (Kindle) without warning. Amazon said this particular version had not been authorized. The uproar on the social websites prompted discussions about whether purchased ebooks belong to the purchaser, as paper books do, and how people can trust electronic booksellers in the future. The ultimate result will be more clarity on property rights, and perhaps a limitation on such heavy-handed policies in the future. This is a small example of using social media for social good.

This is certainly the first significant transformation. Social media today is instructing companies as to what their customers esteem, and woe to those establishments should they endeavor to offer the customers something else. Because, secondly, social media is also making it possible for people to discover very quickly when an organization is trying to be a bit shifty or if their track record is not all it ought to be. However, this also means that companies themselves have a way of using their corporate social media for the greater good of society, and could also use the new techniques to make known when they’re cleaning up their act in some way.

Most social media platforms were originally devised just to connect people who wanted to be friendly and chat about similar interests, but as they learned they could use social media for social good, the nature of those connections expanded immeasurably. Some of the interactions became political, as people worked to effect great changes, and other connections became informational. Social media today is helping businesses and their customers get to know each other as well. And in the end, as corporations recognize what people’s true values are and adapt to them, this is only going to do the world good.

Web strategies including corporate blogging and targeted internet marketing are serving corporations well. However, the nature of the new social media is slowly making these businesses rethink their concentration on their own self interest, growing their vision outside themselves to focus on the good of the wider world. With the new capability of their clients to organize rapidly and make their priorities crystal clear, businesses are now required to give thought to how to use social media for social good, as well as their own advantage.

The very term “social media” is a recently new invention. Social media marketing is a way for people to connect in ways that help them improve their social standing, their business contacts or even their personal life. Social media resources give people the ability to reach a far greater audience than ever before.