The role of "social media" in our world today?

What is the role of social media in our world today? Used to be when I thought of the word term ”social media” I thought of MySpace or yahoo and it was just a way to communicate with friends and family for the most part. Today however, through my business contacts, I’m learning if I’m not communicating with my peers or even potential clients through social media outlets I won’t only not do well professionally, I may not even be able to keep my business afloat. So I’m running the gauntlet of social media sites, some aimed at business contacts, others are just to show we have an online presence.

Consider world events of the past month, in the Middle East so called “Facebook revolts” are taking place. People are gathering to protest in groups as large as a million people even at the potential cost of their very lives.  Even in our own country states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, normally almost painfully conservative are making the evening news nightly with massive protests towards their state government’s actions.

So with all the changes going on around us, in our businesses, in our person life, and in the world in general, it’s easy to say social media has changed our world forever.  I think it brings to us all in a single word “communication”. Our Founding Fathers saw the value of communication in guaranteeing the right to have a free press, the right to assembly, and the right to free speech. Today access to the internet and to social sites like Facebook have connected us all as one people and given people in some parts of the world a new freedom to communicate and make changes just as our founding  fathers before us did. The world is vastly more populated than it was in 1776 and its politics much more complicated, but the heart of the people hasn’t changed. As the Middle East reshapes its future governments by people that want what we have enjoyed for generations, and as our own state governments battle to find common ground with their own people, let’s remember to do one very important thing “KEEP COMMUNICATING”.