Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Nicole Drummond
Wilmington University
Senior Seminar
Mrs. Havens
Author Note
Abstract
Social Media Networking Sites have become extremely popular worldwide. Along with
the popularity of these sites, come opportunities in many different ways. People are
now being noticed for many talents, businesses are being promoted and growing
enormously because of this, and people are connecting and communicating more than
ever. With recognizing all of this, it is also shown that jobs, such as a Social Media
The internet is used for many subject matters but there is one specific area that has
grown enormously just within the past few years. That area I am speaking of is, Social
Media Networking Sites. Sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, YouTube, Blogs,
Twitter, Skype, and many, many more are used every day by millions of people to keep
in touch with one another and stay in contact with family members and friends. They
are used to update people all over the world with what is going on in your life, what
interests you, where you work, what you are thinking, and this all done through pictures,
status updates, blurbs, and videos. When people think of these sites, they usually think
of what I just described, however, companies have started to realize how big these sites
have become and have started using them to expand their businesses. Social media
networking sites can be used for not only socializing but to help make a business grow.
The internet was first introduced in 1962. “The first recorded description of the social
interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by
J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He
quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much
like the Internet of today” (Internet Society, 2011). It has now been 49 years since then,
and along with the years came the people using the internet. The number of people
have grown just like the years. It is shown that there are about 1,966,514,816 (Miniwatts,
Social Media Networking and Businesses Drummond-Networking 4
2010) people that use the internet currently. People started to do business right away
via the internet by using e-mail and sending messages back and forth to one another at
literally one click of a button. The way technology has grown over the past 49 years has
helped with forms of communication through the internet, and the biggest form of that
yet is these social media networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs such as, Blogger
and Wordpress, are all sites where you can add friends from anywhere in the world and
then update as often as you like about whatever it is you want to talk about. Therefore,
everyone is getting updates about your life and know what is currently going on. You
are able to tell when it is someones birthday, anniversary, or any occasion the person
chooses to reveal on these social sites. Along with getting updates about someone’s life,
you can also see a lot of videos and photos from their lives as well. To be able to
receive and send pictures and videos makes it nice for family and friends who live
across the world from each other and are able to share these special moments of your
One other great benefit of these social networking sites is that you are able to create
‘event’ pages. You can list that you are having an event such as, a birthday party,
running for a cause, going to a sports game, and invite who you want to. This feature
on these social sites make it much easier to get a group of people together; you can
post the event in just minutes and it is completely free compared to using actual
invitations in the mail. These social networking sites really make it easy for people,
strangers even, to be able to talk whenever they want and most of them are free or cost
very little.
Social Media Networking and Businesses Drummond-Networking 5
There are about “500 million active users” (Facebook, 2011) people that are signed
up for Facebook, and there are so many people on YouTube that People are watching 2
billion videos a day (YouTube, 2011). There are 344,124,450 (Miniwatts, 2010) people
that live in North America; comparing the numbers show just how many people really do
use these websites. People started to realize that there were a lot of others using all
these sites just like them, and some went as far as to promote themselves through
these pages. People started to make videos of how good they can sing to hopefully be
noticed by a record company, others started to show their acting skills hoping an agent
would run across it, and some people would show how well they were at
somewhere would notice and give them a chance because they like their work. Well,
these people were onto something because so many individuals have gotten jobs,
became actual famous singers and actors because of these videos. An example of one
individual who did this and is now famous is, Greyson Chance. “After recording an
Facebook and YouTube -- and had no idea what would happen next. In just a few short
days the video received millions of views, and he became an Internet sensation
overnight!” (WAD Productions, 2011). This what brought to Ellen’s attention and so she
brought him to her show to reveal him to an even broader audience and is now the first
artist to be signed to Ellen’s new record label, Eleven Eleven. His whole life changed
because of the social media sites, and he is not the only one. There are people who get
noticed all the time because of the traffic of people that visit these social sites.
Social Media Networking and Businesses Drummond-Networking 6
Although these social networking sites started out as a way to communicate with
one another or even a way to promote yourself, businesses all around the world have
realized just how big of a deal these sites have become and have recently started to use
them to promote their businesses and events that the businesses hold.
The issue with businesses now using these social networking sites to their
advantage is that it is causing them to not need certain people in their company. For
example, businesses are now starting to hire people for a position usually titled, “Social
Media Coordinator.” A Social Media Coordinator is usually someone who promotes the
Business on these social networking sites and tries to reach out to as many individuals
as possible to get the company noticed. The Coordinator also does some of the
marketing and planning for events within the company and then proceeds to post them
on the social sites. However, by having this new coordinator companies, no longer need
their advertiser(s), marketers, or even promoters. Although, this is not ideal for those
individuals who are losing their jobs due to this new position that companies have been
and are adding to their companies, it is a move in the right direction, in my opinion.
Also, while it does eliminate some jobs it opens up others in different areas. The
company would most likely want to have a graphics art specialist for digital media, a
It seems that so much good as come from these social networking sites, although
some argue that they are a bad thing because a lot of negative situations have come
from the social networking sites such as: stalking, loss of jobs from putting up bad
photos, relationship breaker because of people cheating on their spouses, and many
Social Media Networking and Businesses Drummond-Networking 7
other situations. However, all of those could be avoided if the individuals did not put
themselves into that kind of situation and used the right privacy tools provided within the
social sites. In comparison of the negative situations, it seems as though there are
many more positives. People now connect with family and friends from all over, people
start relationships from being able to talk and connect more through these social sites,
and businesses and people are able to promote themselves and get much more
feedback.
The social networking sites have grown so popular within just the past few years, I
can’t even imagine what will come within the next decade. Business are already getting
much more attention because of these sites, it can only get better from here on out.
Since these sites are growing so rapidly, so are jobs being provided to individuals all
over. As of currently, there are about 2,775 (Career Builder, 2011) jobs open for Social
Media Coordinators on just www.careerbuilder.com alone, meaning there are most likely
a lot more jobs available on other job sites, and I’m sure the numbers for this job and
others will only grow as time goes on! This whole social networking sites are definitely
going to be around for a long time, and because they are going to grow bigger so will
References
Social Media Jobs on CareerBuilder.com . (n.d.). Jobs - The Largest Job Search,
http://www.careerbuilder.com/jobs/keyword/social+media/
Greyson Chance - The Ellen DeGeneres Show. (n.d.). The Ellen DeGeneres Show: The
place for Ellen tickets, celebrity photos, videos, games, giveaways and more..
http://ellen.warnerbros.com/greyson_chance/?adid=menu_music
Leiner, B., Cerf, V., Clark, D., & Kahn, R. (n.d.). A Brief History of the Internet. Internet
www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
Neilson. (n.d.). World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats.
Internet World Stats - Usage and Population Statistics. Retrieved February 26,
registering., videos, s., favorites, s., playlists, c., & free, s. v. (n.d.). YouTube -