What is Social Media?
When history will be written, 2008 would surely go down its pages, as a remarkable year in world politics.
This year saw what Martin Luther King jr. dreamt of and that which Abraham Lincoln envisioned.
In the month of November, the United States of America achieved yet another first of its kind - they voted for change; they elected a black American as their representative to what can modestly be alluded as the most powerful seat in global realpolitik.
So it doesn’t come as a great surprise that US president-elect Barack Obama tops the chart for the 50 most influential people of 2008.
Having worn down the initial euphoria, let us now take a practical overview of what led to the transformation of a seemingly impossible utopia into a tangible and a very palpable reality.
In spite of the mass elation at the declaration of the results, experts in the highest echelon of global sociology were not overwhelmed.
It had been all very obvious since February last year when the campaigning of both the parties were traversing the last laps of electioneering, that John McCain, the Republican candidate for the presidential race, was far from being a befitting contest to the young Illinois senator.
Not only was McCain trailing Obama on the ideological battle, where he pitted the clichéd agenda of experience and Vietnam War glory against the freshness of hope that his young rival endorsed, but he was also finding it difficult to make ends meet during the course of his political crusading.
But how did a modest lawyer from Illinois, garner as big an election fund as a few billion dollars to pose a colossal challenge for as seasoned a veteran as senator McCain? This is where the significance of social media arises. Read on to get a clearer picture.
Social media, as the name suggests is a kind of a communication tool. It is an aggregation of online sites that are created by people who are interested in the exchange of views among a wide circle of individuals.
It also goes by the name of Web2.0. It also means the same thing - this is a pedestal where people want to know as much about you as they are willing to share about themselves.
As such the cardinal assumption that this machinery of networking makes, is that people are inclined to interact and connect with each other.
If engineered properly, this web instrument can open up wholly new and potential avenues for the promotion of your brand - something that Obama maneuvered with classic élan.
