Module Summary
Social media is the collective term for a variety of online communications channels that facilitate community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Understanding how to find, differentiate, and publish content using social media is an essential 21st century skill that can produce results and ideas limited only by one’s imagination.
Here are some of the key points learned from this module:
Benefits and Risks of Social Media
Social media started out as a way of using the global Internet to participate in online communities to create and share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content with persons of similar interests, the wide range of uses and benefits have expanded to include: business promotion, marketing and branding; real-time information updates; job creation as well as comic relief. However social media also brings new online risks such as Cyber bullying, Hacking personal data and privacy, Fake News and Addiction. Good practices and common sense in the use of social media is extremely important to ensuring that your online identity and reputation remain intact.
Popular Social Media Platforms and their Users
From Facebook with close to 2B users to the more recent Pinterest with 100M users, a wide range of social media channels exist that cater to different audiences and interests. Practical knowledge of the features and audience demographics associated with each platform is an important skill that creates job opportunities
The Language of Social Media
Social Media has created it’s own vocabulary of terms that have special meaning in the virtual world. Post, Viral, Memes, #Hashtags, and Troll are just a few of the terms that you have to understand to speak the language of social mediaThe Language of Social Media
Job Opportunities on Social Media
One of the huge benefits of Social media is job creation and opportunities. In addition to being a channel for promoting existing online and offline businesses, social media creates opportunities for new types of jobs. To maximize your job prospects on social media, ensure that you build and maintain diverse connections, manage your online reputation, and create positive content such as blogs and Youtube videos to enhance your online presence.
