SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2012 IS LIKE HAVING A BEEPER IN 1995

Being the only girl in the family had it's perks growing up.  This was very true when my parents gifted me a BEEPER!!! It was the Motorola Bravo Plus model; I FLIPPED OUT!!!! I could now easily communicate with my friends whenever I wanted. 

Immediately, I began to learn beeper codes and developed beeper codes with my friends. 

Remember these? 

07734, Hello. 

143, I love you. 

411, Need info. 

In 1994,  pagers, or as we cool kids called them, BEEPERS, were all the rage, with 61 million pagers in use. 

I remember thinking how on earth I ever communicated with my friends BEFORE having a beeper?

Flash forward to the year 2012...

Nearly a sixth of the WORLD'S population, or ONE BILLION people, are ACTIVE users on Facebook, logging on at least one time per month. Now we all fluent in LOL speak and are all like OMG and FTW. 

We share photos, locations, life milestones and now organ donor status. Now I think, how on earth did I ever communicated with my friends before Facebook and other social media platforms? People are meeting and being connected to each other virtually using social media.  

398 million users have been active on Facebook on at least six of the last seven days as of March 2012. If those numbers aren't sexy enough, consider 488 million people accessed Facebook through their mobile phone just last month, you heard me. 

Facebook has facilitated, in a virtual space, 125 BILLION friendship connections as of March 2012. 

There are approxiatmely 3.2 BILLION "likes" and comments generated by users PER DAY during the first quarter of 2012. 

THOSE NUMBERS SHOULD GRAB THE ATTENTION OF ALL BUSINESS OWNERS & MANAGERS, ESPECIALLY SMALL BUSINESSES. 

See, having a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest board, a LinkedIn page, etc. IS like having a beeper in 1995. 

This communications revolution has sped up not only the volume and pace of information that is instantly consumable but ALSO for the first time in the history of humanity, ANYONE can add information, therefore leaving our own permanent marks on the intrawebs, forever leaving notes, photos, stories, conversations and lifetime's worth of history: a legacy.

A LOT of speculation has taken place surrounding the Facebook's landmark IPO last week. Critics say look, the stock lost value in its opening days, that Facebook isn't "cool" anymore. However, the naysayers or resisters should look at the numbers, they speak for themselves. 

I will say it here again: SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT GOING AWAY. 

It is to the advantage of every business, organization and group to build online communities to develop and share content, engage their communities and educate consumers about their brand. Brands who don't use these tools will miss out the opportunity to build DIRECT relationships with consumers. Brands who do build communities will be successful at creating customer loyalty and repeat customers.