Social Media

Hi readers,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend (:
I have an interesting subject for you guys today!

Today's subject is SOCIAL MEDIA. 

Social media is a collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interactions, content-sharing & collaborations. Basically, websites that connects you with other users. Yes, social media is everywhere and everyone (most of us) uses them. I've research the most popular social networking sites which are Facebook followed by Youtube, twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, Tumblr and let's not forget Instagram. Now of course those are just a few I mentioned. Now aren't you wondering how these networking sites have become a part of our daily life? Everyday we spend tons of hours on Youtube or Facebook. Is it safe to say that we cannot live without them? They are improving day by day and the more convenient the more we fall in love with them.

 Nowadays social media has become critical in the marketing mix for outbound tourism, because most of us use the internet to find whatever we are looking for. You first check flights online and compare the prices of different airlines then maybe you go to the travel agency, if you want to be sure. If you are more old school you go directly to the agency, but let's be honest here. We don't usually do that anymore. The internet has made everything easy for us all. I never knew that in China foreign social media are blocked. So what do they use? Well, they use their own social networking sites such as Weibo, Wechat, Youku etc to interact with the rest of the community. Mobile and internet users are arising in China so social media i think is a must there! When you are going to start a social media campaign the key success factors are to firstly ask yourself for who am I going to start this campaign for (Target Group). When you know your target group you have to research their culture and values. A social media campaign in India cannot be the same as in China. You obviously have culture differences and a different language, but also morals and values. Every country is different. So, what do they use in China? I've found a few social medias that are frequently used by the Chinese community.

Weibo, Sina Weibo & Renren are like the Facebook & twitters of China. Tencent Qzone/QQ & Wechat are messaging tools such as Whatsapp.
Youku & Tudou are like Youtube for them. Foreign social media is blocked by the government in China according to fear and protectionism. They want to be independent from outsiders and not let foreigners influence their country. Current trends in social media in general are live streaming becoming more and more popular among youtubers and celebs, social commerce, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation such as Google, Bing and Yahoo), advertising online, apps and much much more. In China e-commerce is growing faster, live video (using Meipai & Miaopai), Q&A sites such as Fenda & Zhihu live, Wang Hong are growing group of influential cyber celebs usually fashion bloggers who use their online fame and turn it into a business. We are so used to our social media whereas in China they don't have ours, but use their own.

My thoughts on social media is: IT'S EVOLVING FASTER THAN EVER! Looking  back 5 years ago the accessibility hasn't developed this far. It's a good and bad thing. Good because you can do many things and connect with people around the world. Bad because there is no sets of boundaries anymore for example when you go somewhere some people interact less with each other. They are constantly on their phones. Can it get better? or worse? Are security measures being taking?

Thanks for reading (: