Social Media Analysis

The world has witnessed an outburst of the Internet-supported social media platforms. In 2005, it was estimated that 65% of America’s population used at least one social media platform (Bussert, 2010, p.24). According to a report by Pew Research Center, social media affects different areas of human life either positively or negatively. The most affected areas include work, communication patterns, business operations, news consumption, political deliberation, culture, health, parenting, teenage life, and social life (Gladwell & Shirky, 2011, p.32). This explains why social media has come to gain support and opposition almost in almost equal proportions (Bussert, 2010). In other words, some members of the society believe that social media is

The remaining 31% also gets the latest news through the social media platforms. The awareness created and spread through the social media is either informative or educative. Most news organizations including the world’s most popular channels such as BBC, CNN, CCTV, and Aljazeera use social media platforms to update their followers on the happenings around the globe (Shirky, 2011, p.25). Sports media houses are also in social media where they keep their fans updated on various sporting activities. An important aspect of the social media sites is the degree at which users share the news channeled to them by the media houses. It is estimated that half of the social media users have shared new stories, videos, and images received from media houses (Tobias, 2011, p.34). In fact, studies indicate that social media has passed television and radio stations as the main source of news for the young people (Shirky, 2011, p.26). Apart from news, social media also creates other forms of awareness among the people of the world (Hansen, Shneiderman & Smith, 2010, p.33). For instance, some organizations use social media sites as the route to spread awareness on health, social and political issues. The social media users who inform the public about health issues mainly concentrate on how to keep fit and avoid certain diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity (Hansen,

These platforms help business people find new clients. In 2015, the usage of social media for advertisement increased by 25 percent. It is estimated that over 33.5 billion US dollars were used for social media advertisement, which is an indication that organizations have realized the importance of social media (Safko, 2010, p.25). The effectiveness of social media in product advertisement is attributed to the associated reliable conversation tracking, the increased number of internet users especially through mobile phones and the advanced targeting and sharing options offered by the various platforms (Safko, 2010, p.25). The advanced sharing and targeting offered by the social media are effective because these platforms capture their audience in a wide variety of ways (Tobias, 2011, p.32). Going beyond the general geographic and population data, these platforms have opened doors for behavior and connection-based targeting options. The advanced targeting offered by the social media platforms increases the relevance of the ads the users (Safko, 2010, p.34). They also create a level of personalization that would be difficult to achieve when using other advertising platforms. The increased efficiency of social media advertising is possibly the reason behind the increased number of businesses that has created