Social media has been part of our lives for over 20 years. Is your business taking advantage of it?
Traditional social media? They are only 25 years old, but yes, there are social media platforms one might refer to as traditional, as in older. The first social media platform was 1997's Six Degrees. Simple by today’s standards, users could upload photos, add friends, and not much else. By 1999 blogging sites became accessible to the internet novice, introducing the masses to the kinds of ubiquitous social sharing we are accustomed to using today.
The social media giants we are familiar with today are far younger, and new ones are being born all the time. Between 2002 and 2006 many of the platforms we know and love today got their start: Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Blogger, Flikr, Twitter among them. With more computers in homes and mobile phones and tablets accessing the internet, social media exploded.
Astute business marketers saw this new phenomenon as a new way to deliver their message to potential new customers. From Facebook Fan Pages to commercial Twitter accounts, companies small and large have been capitalizing on social media long enough for a mature approach to take shape.