Social media has become the predominant mode of communication that is replacing traditional communication channels. The culture of letter writing is getting replaced by emails,and you can also use your phone to listen to the radio.
There are more than 3 billion social media users globally with that number growing every day. Many people all over the world are using social media to communicate. Social media has become so dominant such that even businesses are using it to reach many customers as they can. To make effective communication on social media requires a user to be authentic,transparent,consistent and present.
Here is how social media has influenced communication
It has made digital messages more personal
Social media platforms like Instagram and snap chat allows users tocustomize their pictures. They can add captions,draw,put stickers and add filters.Apart from encouraging creativity, it is a way to communicate feelings and personalities. Snap chat and Instagram has also added features that allow people to transform into animal characters and even food characters.
These captions can be used to create advertisements to attract people to attend certain events. For example, a university can use specific filters from snap chat to encourage people to participate in a musical contest. Such a post is shared widely making people give insights as well as mobilize them to attend the event.
Snap chat also gives brands a platform to create their content and share it with their followers. People can share their experiences without having to explain themselves since using a video is self-explanatory.
It has created a need for urgency
Recently platforms like Twitter had grown fast and was sharing breaking records within seconds. It had created a need for sharing content every now and them. It had also put pressure on people especially celebrities to get active and be live all the time to share their every minute experience.
The dynamic nature of social media has made this wave cool down due to the creation of other platforms like Instagram and snap chat that requires a different mode of communication. To share stories and content on these platforms, you needed to sit back and get composure before posting your content. Other users also react to the posts especially Instagram stories within 24 hours before they disappear. Such a mode of communication has created a real-time method of communication that is more engaging. People share their content with their friends at the click of the button.
It has created a personal connection between the millennia’s and media
Millennials are using social media platforms to access news. Most social media platforms like snap chat, Google Chrome, Facebook and Twitter have created news outlets that enable the millennial to discover news making headlines in their geographical location. Facebook has also created a Trending section that carries all nature of stories including politics, technology, and science. Social media is also building hashtags regarding news making headlines around the globe that are transmitted from one platform to another.
Journalists also use social media to seek public opinion and polls. They pose questions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and get peoples insights and use them to create simple poll results.
It has encouraged a broader reach
Social media platforms have fostered communication across the world at the click of a button. Information can reach millions of people within seconds. Platforms like Instagram and snap chat have also encouraged global communications by allowing people to share their stories and adventure. People can get to travel the world on these platforms by viewing stories and live feeds of different life stories of various destinations.
For users to share these experiences and get constant comments and likes they need to have a good following. Instagram users even ask for auto like Instagram- free for 1 post to grow their popularity and share their stories with as many people as possible.
Students use snap chat to share their activities such as athletics academics and community outreach. Universities too have used the platforms to communicate their student’s experiences with the world giving other students willing to join such institutions have first-hand experiences.
Use of fewer filters in conversations.
There has been a significant evolution between face to face communication and chatting on the phone or computer. It has made us lose some of our communication skills. People are ignoring the use of filters as they converse since they are strangers to one another. In such a situation there is no such judgment.It has encouraged trolling and increased cyberbullying.
Compared to traditional media people on social media platform tend to be more expressive and reveal more of themselves. Brands have to communicate with their clients professionally since their clients expect full cooperation from them.
Social media is changing traditional media
The authority of the media is moving towards the crowd that is on social media. Influencers are making news through blogs and articles that get shared widely through all the social media platform. They represent an honest insight into various issues from real-time experience. Traditionally information was written to about a specific subject and reached the audience instantly. Besides, traditional media is still present, but it’s incorporate the internet slowly.
Has led to the adoption of brief messages
Some social media platforms like Twitter have encouraged people to use a short message to express themselves, Twitter, for example, allows an introduction of up to 140 characters. People have to be creative enough to compress their message into about 30 words. However, shorter messages tend to encourage people to shorten paragraphs and neglect the use of proper grammar. People also use abbreviations to communicate on social media and speak a new language entirely. Abbreviations like FB that stands for Facebook or 2 for two are used to pass information on social media
Final word
There is no defined way to communicate or adopt social media. It creates a new form of language and mutual understanding among all social media users. It is also dynamic and takes on new features as it changes.
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