Social Media - Tool Or Toy?
We tend to're positive a twitter about social media! I guess that is to be expected and, to some extent, it's smart that the first adopters are bringing the remainder folks unwashed plenty to the next great thing within the forever-connected world.
During the last six months I've investigated a giant variety of the new social media tools and their respective add-ons. The effort hasn't been exhaustive, but I feel I'm conversant on what social media is and how the fundamentals work. Throughout this investigation, my driving query has been: Is social media a tool or a toy? First, I'll describe how I define these two terms then I'll preach on the topic at giant!
Defining "Tool" and "Toy" Whenever I commenced to be told a brand new technology, my primary objective is to determine whether or not it can enhance my life in some method while not costing me too many administrative cycles. Most times, I notice the administrative burden of adopting or adapting a replacement technology way outweighs the enhancement I perceive. So, I rarely rush to the most recent "greatest thing ever."
The second level of enhancement is to work out what sort of enhancement is it: Tool or Toy? A Tool enhancement may be a technology that will advance my professional efforts in some meaningful way. As an example, I recently started this blog as a result of I felt that (a) blog platforms had matured enough technologically to provide me the communication options I sought and (b) my message was now refined enough to leverage the promise blogs bring.
Conversely, a Toy enhancement is one thing I relish doing in my free or personal time. A great example of a technical toy I've adopted is Brickbreaker - the phone game originally obtainable on the BlackBerry and currently also on the market on the iPhone. I relish this simple game, especially at the end of an extended work day once I'm sitting in an airport and simply want to concentrate on the challenge presented by the game for a while.
I've got no bias towards one or the other, but I will admit that Toy enhancements need to be stronger (in terms of the extent of enhancement they provide) as a result of I worth my personal time more. Stated differently, after I have free time, there are already things I very get pleasure from doing. Therefore a new Toy includes a high bar to achieve before obtaining on the list of things to try and do throughout those periods.
Social Media is About Communication 1st, before diving into my conclusion, let me 1st state my view that social media technologies are new communication tools. Nothing a lot of and zilch less. Therefore a lot of hype surrounds the foremost players during this area, that this easy truth is often lost.
As a form of communication, it's my opinion that users must define for themselves how they want to engage with the opportunity. A lot of specifically, the user should ask, "What is my purpose for communicating in this fashion?" Simply jumping in without an understanding of why you're doing so may be a great approach to waste it slow - a resource in restricted supply in everybody's life.
The needs for using social media are varied - connecting with new folks, re-connecting with old friends, self promotion, promotion of other individuals and different things, etc. And you'll be able to arrange to vary the substance of your communication between these myriad categories. My recommendation is to simply assume about why you're doing it before launching to the mix.
But is it a Tool or a Toy? My call to engage with social media resulted from concluding that it had been an enhancement to my skilled life as a Tool. Whether or not it's Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or MySpace, I ask for to communicate my content and message as a productivity consultant to folks interested in what I've got to offer. That is regarding 85% of how I exploit social media. The other fifteen% focuses on my love of fly fishing.
As a result of I decided that social media was of primary worth to me as a Tool, I am terribly selective concerning who I "follow" and "friend," also because the content I publish. As a result of I've found a ton of content without substance in most of those platforms, I'm quick to discard most of what streams by my screen. But, I've got also found an incredible amount of valuable content and many fascinating individuals that I would haven't found without this channel.
Will Social Media Enhance Life? Absolutely. However, social media continues to be in its emergent stages. Like blogs, the technology platforms for social media have a lot of maturing to do before their long-term price can be established. What's cetain, though, is like most of its communication predecessors, social media is here to stay.
Author Resource:
aaron adish has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Social Media, you can also check out latest website about
Ice Climbing Gear Ice Climbing Rope
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")