In the PR world social media sites have been rising in popularity like crazy. Even though prior to the Facebook era there were other social media sites like Xanga and Myspace that existed, but Facebook was the one that broke the barrier and started the craze that everyone is obsessed with. It it hard to find people who don't have a Facebook account even though I do know of a few people that haven't jumped on the bandwagon due to their own personal reasons which I completely respect. However, not being connected with social media especially for PR major is almost a sin. Social media is critical to the PR world and has only advanced the ways in which we communicate, go about creating free publicity and bringing awareness to others.
Today, there is such a variety of social media sites that it's hard to keep up with them all. Every day it seems like there is some sort of new site that is being published to the web. Social media sites are even starting to become the top used sites on the Internet and beating out the porn industry, which for a long time was the number one thing people searched for the on the web. According to The eBusiness Knowledgebass, they rated the top 15 social media sites of 2010 as Facebook(#1), Myspace (#2), Twitter(#3), LinkedIn (#4), and so on. Some of the sites that they had listed I have never heard about before, but somehow they are considered top social media sites used by people all over the world.
With these sites being created it is so beneficial for the PR world because not only is it a way to gain publicity and bring awareness, but it's FREE. It is so simple to type in a 160 character message on Twitter knowing that message can reach out to millions of people all over the world within seconds. Also, Facebook is a wonderful PR tool because many organizations now are using it to interact with it's customers, fans, followers whatever they may be and reach out to them through status updates, fan pages, and events. It's a great way to spread the word without having to spend loads of money on an advertisement campaign that many people might choose to pay attention to or ignore. Social media is a gift sent down from heaven for the PR world.
