Social Media for the Older Generations

It’s not a surprise to me that businesses around the globe are turning to social media to get word out about their services and products. Many of these businesses may be run or influenced by other Millenials, such as myself, but some are not and can be convinced to use it. I would explain to someone of a different generation that proper use of social media would be effective to their business by stressing the benefits of word of mouth through the social media and the Internet. Social media sites, such as Facebook, are very effective in spreading word to millions of people all throughout the world for free, and I think that is one of the biggest benefits. For example, when “Make Kony Famous” blew up practically overnight, I had learned of it through Facebook from a friend in Nevada, but I was in Austria. Later that day, I saw people from Georgia posting about it, and the next morning I saw posters around Linz, Austria and that weekend in Zagreb, Croatia already! This is just one example of how something like a video can be spread all around the world just by the connections people have on social media sites. Like I said, I think the biggest benefit to using social media with a business is the effectiveness of basically free publicity, advertising and word of mouth. I say word of mouth because a lot of people talk about what they read on Facebook, Twitter, etc. to others, while still spreading the word through reposting.