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- 1. Importance of Social Media in Today's World Social media platforms provide tired individuals with customized feeds consisting of memes, news, and short clips of videos as per the user's activity. It provides people with a much- needed break from their busy schedules. Benefits of Social Media for Businesses 1. Direct Contact With Target Audience Thanks to social media platforms, you don't have to call or email people randomly to check if they are interested in your brand or not. Search engine optimization and market with almost the whole world on social media, it is now possible that your target audience is simply a click away from you. Using hashtags, you can directly land your brand on your target audiences' page - giving yourself an enormous reach. 2. Increasing Popularity With Ease For people in the social media content and digital marketing , the ability to attract popularity is what matters most. The social media platforms provide such a section of people with precisely what they're looking for - increased exposure. Carrying out simple, engaging tasks such as answering queries, posting times, and so on would ensure that you blow up on these sites after some time. Even though it requires some time investment, the hefty returns are worth it at the end of the day. 3. Better Traffic Since there is a wide diversity of active people on social media, the scope for diverse traffic is also broadened. Optimizing social media per your needs can ensure that you receive visits and traffic from various people. Since today people are on their phones most of the time, it is highly likely that people would come across your brand or work. Proper usage of keywords and other SEO guidelines would also ensure heavier and better traffic. 4. Create a Lasting Image If you are looking to work so that your piece of content leaves an imprint on the viewer's brain, using social media is the best way to go about it. Granted, people do look at their emails too. But how often can we find people spending hours surfing through their emails? In contrast, people love spending countless hours surfing through social media on their phones. Hence, if you can optimize your work efficiently there, you will likely leave your mark. Importance of Social Media In Our Lives For most of us, social media is an important part of our lives. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, choose your favorite. Also, there is no denying that our days are incomplete without these sites. In the year gone by, the importance of social media was even more appreciated.
- 2. The year 2020 has been quite a different one and unlike any of the previous years in many aspects. With countries going under lockdown for months; our needs, priorities, and lifestyle too had taken a shift. The way we earn, spend, learn, and even socialize was unlike what we did before 2020. Since we couldn’t move out of our homes for days or even months, internet and social media sites were our only resort. It was during this time that we realized the real importance of social media and how impactful it is on our lives. What is Social Media? To speak formally, as per the Cambridge Dictionary, social media is defined as “websites and computer programs that allow people to communicate and share information on the internet using a computer or mobile phone”. Now if you split the words social media, then, social which comes from the Latin word means friend, and media refer to means of mass communication. Thus, social media in simple terms can be referred to as an informal platform for mass communication. Social Media Characteristics The fact that we all are indulged on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. proves how common and important social media is. It has become a part of our everyday life. Before understanding the importance of social media in our lives, let us learn the aspects or characteristics which make social media a unique, massively popular medium with widespread use. Let us see these characteristics below.Easily accessible: The main aspect of social media which contributes to its enormous success, is the ease of access it provides to its user. Anyone with a mobile device or a computer along with an internet connection can easily become a user. Thus, with internet connection being easily and inexpensively accessible to the Indian population, the popularity of social media has grown manifold. Everyone is just a click away. Create and share visuals and content: Users can create content using visuals, audio, or text. They can start private forums, public discussions, audio pods, and even blogs. Therefore, we can find content, visuals, and audio across genres and on any varied topic. Social media encourages creativity and novelty. Communication to a large group at the same time: Social media’s characteristic of being instantaneous helps in its widespread use and extreme popularity. Within a couple of seconds, your post reaches your complete circle of friends or group at the same time. In fact, what one shares, can be further shared by others. This will help gain popularity or go viral. In recent times, there have been many occasions wherein, posts have gone viral within minutes of their upload. Everyone is an active participant: On social media platforms, all the users are participants. Compare it with traditional media like newspapers, wherein, information is simply imparted. Social media platforms work on a two-way basis. You can share your experience, give your opinions, reviews, exchange information on a real- time basis. Flexible and dynamic:
- 3. Since users are active participants; the contents and tools are continuously updated and improved. Newer demands are generated and changes are a continuous part of the system. From the app’s point of view, the users have requested a timely update. This fixes the bugs and improves the system. Cost-effective: Not to forget that social media engagement is light on your pocket. The user needs to bear only the internet expense to enter the social media world. Also, retaining on these platforms does not require any cost. Also, you need not spend lots of money to advertise or communicate. In fact, it’s highly cost-effective compared to other modes of advertisement or communication channels. The common type of Social Media sites Below are the few most popular types of social media sites: Social networking sites: These are the most popular social media sites. As the name suggests, these sites help in networking people and are widely used. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most commonly used social networking sites. Media sharing sites: These sites are focused more on visuals; sharing photos and videos. Examples of these sites are Instagram and YouTube. Social blogging sites: Blogging has been in trend for quite some time now. Creating and distributing content and making aware of the same has been a popular activity on the internet. Medium and Tumblr are common examples of blogging websites. Discussion sites: Discussion networks are very informative platforms. You can post a question or answer any, also you to understand the trends and sentiment surrounding the topic. Reddit and Quora are two popular discussion sites. Social Media Statistics The importance of social media can easily be understood if we know how impactful social media is in terms of its usage. Social media has a growing popularity worldwide which can be seen from the data below. When we talk about social media, it is usually irrespective of geographical boundaries. Studies suggest, one of the most popular online activities that people undertake, is social media usage. Let us take a look at the following statistical data published by J. Clement, a research expert covering the internet and e-commerce. The statistics are based on the number of social media users worldwide and also a number of social media users in India) as of January 2020. In India, with easy access to the internet in recent times, the Indian population has been quite loyal to social media platforms. With just over 326.1 million users in 2018, the country is expected to reach up to 447.9 million users by 2023. India in fact, has the highest number of Facebook users worldwide which is close to 300 million as of Jan 2020. Also, WhatsApp and TikTok mobile downloads were highest in India in 2020
- 4. As the country inclined more and more towards social media, the Indian Government took the Digital India initiative to tap on this opportunity. Not too far behind is India’s digital advertising industry, which is worth over 160 billion INR and is estimated to reach 560 billion INR by 2023. Importance of Social Media With almost half of the world’s population using social media, the importance of social media is undoubted. Individuals and businesses both are grateful for this effective, inexpensive, and fast mode of mass communication. In the year 2020, its importance has been even more cemented. From people in smaller towns to the metro cities and from start-up and small-scale businesses to the big giant everyone needs social media. Without wasting more time let us now move to the importance of social media in our lives. For individuals: Man is a social animal. We all like to be surrounded by our loved ones and get connected to as many of our known ones as possible. Below is the importance of social media for individuals. To stay connected with friends and family: The utmost importance of social media is that it helps in staying in touch with our loved ones. You get to know what are your friends or family doing. Even without meeting up too often, social media helps in creating and sustaining that emotional bond. To share your life: Social media is a great place to share your life events. You can share your photos, videos, stories on the platform. Your virtual avatar is nowadays perceived to be the real you. Since, sharing about your achievements, your happiness, sorrow, makes you feel that you have people who are ready to listen to you. This makes you feel less lonely. To stay updated with current news and events: Most of us use social media to stay up to date about current events and news. Social media also helps us in giving some insights on current topics. In fact, breaking news these days are spread vigorously through Twitter and WhatsApp. Also, any new developments in your interest areas like science and technology, food, lifestyle, fashion, etc. are learned through this medium. To share opinion or feedback: These days, if you would want to buy something, you generally look for customer reviews or feedback. Product or service reviews are easily available on social media to make informed decisions. Social media is a great place to learn about others’ opinions as well as share your own. Your feedback, good or bad can be shared easily through social media. A lot of businesses now have a designated social media team. This team responds to customer queries and grievances that are channeled via a social media platform. To find new people or friends: With more and more people joining social media, it allows you to make new friends, meet new people from any corner of the world. To find entertaining content: The web space is filled with content from various genres. Social media sites are the most commonplace to get these contents based on your interest. It helps you in finding content that is entertaining and gives you a break from your daily activities.