presentation on importance of social media

The power of social media

Social media is an undeniable force in today's world. These talks highlight its impact -- from big history-defining moments to the silliness we’ve come to expect.

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Strengthen Your Professional Presence on Social Media

• Michelle Gibbings

Connect, create, and be consistent for the best results.

Have you ever thought of using social media to strengthen your career? There are many social media platforms and each has different offerings that may benefit you more or less depending on your current job and future career goals.

• First, decide where to spend your time. Figure out what features are must-haves, nice-to-haves, and irrelevant for showcasing your skills and building a strong presence. While you don’t need to choose just one platform, trying to build a professional presence on too many at once can be a waste of valuable time — especially if a platform isn’t serving your career needs or goals.
• Next, remember that just being on a social media platform isn’t enough. What matters is your visibility, your impact, and how both things are pushing you closer to your career goal. Who knows you is as important as who you know . Use your social media account like a online business card and share it with people you meet. Follow people on their professional social media pages, engage with their content, comment on their posts, and reach out with an ask or offer directly related to their interests or work.
• Then, create a content strategy for your account. Think about what types of content you will share, when you’ll share it and how your content will create value for your followers. Use your content to showcase your thoughts and perspectives so people can get to know you.
• Lastly, be consistent. Ensure that what you share and how you comment and behave on professional social platforms align with your values and how you want people to think about you.

When it comes to your career, social media can be your friend and your enemy. On the one hand, research has found that looking at people’s career-related posts on social media can affect our perception and feelings about our own progress . Seeing friends, colleagues, and even strangers post stories about their successes can lead us to unhealthy comparisons, self-criticisms, and feelings of frustration.

• MG Michelle Gibbings is bringing back the happy to workplace culture. The author of three books and a global keynote speaker, she’s on a mission to help leaders, teams and organizations create successful workplaces where people thrive and progress is accelerated.

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Why social media has changed the world — and how to fix it

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Are you on social media a lot? When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago?

If so, you are not alone — which is the point, of course. Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have become wired to process social information, and we usually feel better when we are connected. Social media taps into this tendency.

“Human brains have essentially evolved because of sociality more than any other thing,” says Sinan Aral, an MIT professor and expert in information technology and marketing. “When you develop a population-scale technology that delivers social signals to the tune of trillions per day in real-time, the rise of social media isn’t unexpected. It’s like tossing a lit match into a pool of gasoline.”

The numbers make this clear. In 2005, about 7 percent of American adults used social media. But by 2017, 80 percent of American adults used Facebook alone. About 3.5 billion people on the planet, out of 7.7 billion, are active social media participants. Globally, during a typical day, people post 500 million tweets, share over 10 billion pieces of Facebook content, and watch over a billion hours of YouTube video.

As social media platforms have grown, though, the once-prevalent, gauzy utopian vision of online community has disappeared. Along with the benefits of easy connectivity and increased information, social media has also become a vehicle for disinformation and political attacks from beyond sovereign borders.

“Social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health,” says Aral, who is the David Austin Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Now Aral has written a book about it. In “The Hype Machine,” published this month by Currency, a Random House imprint, Aral details why social media platforms have become so successful yet so problematic, and suggests ways to improve them.

As Aral notes, the book covers some of the same territory as “The Social Dilemma,” a documentary that is one of the most popular films on Netflix at the moment. But Aral’s book, as he puts it, "starts where ‘The Social Dilemma’ leaves off and goes one step further to ask: What can we do about it?”

“This machine exists in every facet of our lives,” Aral says. “And the question in the book is, what do we do? How do we achieve the promise of this machine and avoid the peril? We’re at a crossroads. What we do next is essential, so I want to equip people, policymakers, and platforms to help us achieve the good outcomes and avoid the bad outcomes.”

When “engagement” equals anger

“The Hype Machine” draws on Aral’s own research about social networks, as well as other findings, from the cognitive sciences, computer science, business, politics, and more. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, for instance, have found that people obtain bigger hits of dopamine — the chemical in our brains highly bound up with motivation and reward — when their social media posts receive more likes.

At the same time, consider a 2018 MIT study by Soroush Vosoughi, an MIT PhD student and now an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College; Deb Roy, MIT professor of media arts and sciences and executive director of the MIT Media Lab; and Aral, who has been studying social networking for 20 years. The three researchers found that on Twitter, from 2006 to 2017, false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true ones. Why? Most likely because false news has greater novelty value compared to the truth, and provokes stronger reactions — especially disgust and surprise.

In this light, the essential tension surrounding social media companies is that their platforms gain audiences and revenue when posts provoke strong emotional responses, often based on dubious content.

“This is a well-designed, well-thought-out machine that has objectives it maximizes,” Aral says. “The business models that run the social-media industrial complex have a lot to do with the outcomes we’re seeing — it’s an attention economy, and businesses want you engaged. How do they get engagement? Well, they give you little dopamine hits, and … get you riled up. That’s why I call it the hype machine. We know strong emotions get us engaged, so [that favors] anger and salacious content.”

From Russia to marketing

“The Hype Machine” explores both the political implications and business dimensions of social media in depth. Certainly social media is fertile terrain for misinformation campaigns. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia spread  false information to at least 126 million people on Facebook and another 20 million people on Insta­gram (which Facebook owns), and was responsible for 10 million tweets. About 44 percent of adult Americans visited a false news source in the final weeks of the campaign.

“I think we need to be a lot more vigilant than we are,” says Aral.

We do not know if Russia’s efforts altered the outcome of the 2016 election, Aral says, though they may have been fairly effective. Curiously, it is not clear if the same is true of most U.S. corporate engagement efforts.

As Aral examines, digital advertising on most big U.S. online platforms is often wildly ineffective, with academic studies showing that the “lift” generated by ad campaigns — the extent to which they affect consumer action — has been overstated by a factor of hundreds, in some cases. Simply counting clicks on ads is not enough. Instead, online engagement tends to be more effective among new consumers, and when it is targeted well; in that sense, there is a parallel between good marketing and guerilla social media campaigns.

“The two questions I get asked the most these days,” Aral says, “are, one, did Russia succeed in intervening in our democracy? And two, how do I measure the ROI [return on investment] from marketing investments? As I was writing this book, I realized the answer to those two questions is the same.”

Ideas for improvement

“The Hype Machine” has received praise from many commentators. Foster Provost, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says it is a “masterful integration of science, business, law, and policy.” Duncan Watts, a university professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the book is “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and how we can get somewhere better.”

In that vein, “The Hype Machine” has several detailed suggestions for improving social media. Aral favors automated and user-generated labeling of false news, and limiting revenue-collection that is based on false content. He also calls for firms to help scholars better research the issue of election interference.

Aral believes federal privacy measures could be useful, if we learn from the benefits and missteps of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and a new California law that lets consumers stop some data-sharing and allows people to find out what information companies have stored about them. He does not endorse breaking up Facebook, and suggests instead that the social media economy needs structural reform. He calls for data portability and interoperability, so “consumers would own their identities and could freely switch from one network to another.” Aral believes that without such fundamental changes, new platforms will simply replace the old ones, propelled by the network effects that drive the social-media economy.

“I do not advocate any one silver bullet,” says Aral, who emphasizes that changes in four areas together — money, code, norms, and laws — can alter the trajectory of the social media industry.

But if things continue without change, Aral adds, Facebook and the other social media giants risk substantial civic backlash and user burnout.

“If you get me angry and riled up, I might click more in the short term, but I might also grow really tired and annoyed by how this is making my life miserable, and I might turn you off entirely,” Aral observes. “I mean, that’s why we have a Delete Facebook movement, that’s why we have a Stop Hate for Profit movement. People are pushing back against the short-term vision, and I think we need to embrace this longer-term vision of a healthier communications ecosystem.”

Changing the social media giants can seem like a tall order. Still, Aral says, these firms are not necessarily destined for domination.

“I don’t think this technology or any other technology has some deterministic endpoint,” Aral says. “I want to bring us back to a more practical reality, which is that technology is what we make it, and we are abdicating our responsibility to steer technology toward good and away from bad. That is the path I try to illuminate in this book.”

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Press mentions.

Prof. Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” has been selected as one of the best books of the year about AI by Wired . Gilad Edelman notes that Aral’s book is “an engagingly written shortcut to expertise on what the likes of Facebook and Twitter are doing to our brains and our society.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Danny Crichton of TechCrunch about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the future of social media. Aral notes that he believes a starting point “for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy.” 

New York Times

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with New York Times editorial board member Greg Bensinger about how social media platforms can reduce the spread of misinformation. “Human-in-the-loop moderation is the right solution,” says Aral. “It’s not a simple silver bullet, but it would give accountability where these companies have in the past blamed software.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with NPR’s Michael Martin about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the benefits and downfalls posed by social media. “I've been researching social media for 20 years. I've seen its evolution and also the techno utopianism and dystopianism,” says Aral. “I thought it was appropriate to have a book that asks, 'what can we do to really fix the social media morass we find ourselves in?'”

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Over 2.5 billion people use social media. This is how it has changed the world

3.5 billion people are online. Image:  REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

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Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has 2.4 billion users. Other social media platforms including Youtube and Whatsapp also have more than one billion users each.

These numbers are huge – there are 7.7 billion people in the world, with 3.5 billion of us online . This means social media platforms are used by one-in-three people in the world, and more than two-thirds of all internet users.

Social media has changed the world. The rapid and vast adoption of these technologies is changing how we find partners , how we access information from the news , and how we organize to demand political change .

Who uses social media? When did the rise of social media start and what are the largest sites today? Here we answer these and other key questions to understand social media use around the world.

We begin with an outline of key trends and conclude with a perspective on the rate of adoption of social media relative to other modern communication technologies.

Social media started in the early 2000s

The first social media site to reach a million monthly active users was MySpace – it achieved this milestone around 2004. This is arguably the beginning of social media as we know it.

In the interactive chart below we plot monthly active users, by platform, since 2004. You can use the slider to focus on particular years, and you can click the ‘+ Add’ option to change series and track the evolution of other social media platforms.

This chart shows that there are some large social media sites that have been around for ten or more years, such as Facebook, YouTube and Reddit; but other large sites are much newer.

TikTok, for example, launched in September 2016 and by mid-2018 it had already reached half a billion users. To put this in perspective: TikTok gained on average about 20 million new users per month over this period.

The data also shows rapid changes in the opposite direction. Once-dominant platforms have disappeared. In 2008, Hi5, MySpace and Friendster were close competitors to Facebook, yet by 2012 they had virtually no share of the market. The case of MySpace is remarkable considering that in 2006 it temporarily surpassed Google as the most visited website in the US.

Most of the social media platforms that survived the last decade have shifted significantly in what they offer users. Twitter, for example, didn’t allow users to upload videos or images in the beginning. Since 2011 this is possible and today more than 50% of the content viewed on Twitter includes images and videos.

Have you read?

This is how social media giants are helping stop the spread of measles, which country is most active on social media.

Facebook has dominated the social media market for a decade, but five other platforms also have more than half a billion users each

With 2.3 billion users, Facebook is the most popular social media platform today. YouTube, Instagram and WeChat follow, with more than a billion users. Tumblr and TikTok come next, with over half a billion users.

The bar chart below shows a ranking of the top social media platforms, year by year. You can drag the slider in this chart to see the ranking for other years.

Some social media sites are particularly popular among specific population groups

The aggregate numbers mask a great deal of heterogeneity across platforms – some social media sites are much more popular than others among specific population groups.

In general, young people are more likely to use social media than older people. But some platforms are much more popular among younger people. This is shown in the chart below, where we plot the breakdown of social media use by age groups in the US.

For Snapchat and Instagram the ‘age gradient’ is extremely steep – the popularity of these platforms drops much faster with age. The majority of people under 25 use Snapchat (73%), while only 3% of people over 65 use it.

Since these platforms are relatively new, it’s hard to know how much of this age gradient is the result of a “cohort effect”. In other words: it’s unclear whether today’s young people will continue using Snapchat as they become older. If they do, the age gradient would narrow.

Let’s now look at gender differences.

The next chart shows the percentage of men and women who use different platforms in the US. The diagonal line marks parity; so sites above the diagonal line are those more popular among men and sites below are those more popular among women. (Bubble sizes are proportional to the total number of users of each platform.)

For some platforms the gender differences are very large. The share of women who use Pinterest is more than twice as high as the share of men using this platform. For Reddit it is the other way around, the share of men is almost twice as high.

In rich countries almost all young people use social media

From a back-of-the-envelope calculation we know that, if Facebook has 2.3 billion users, then at least 30% of the world uses social media. This is of course just an average – for some world regions, and specifically for some population groups, usage rates are much higher.

Young people tend to use social media more frequently. In fact, in rich countries, where access to the internet is nearly universal , the vast majority of young adults use it.

The chart below shows the proportion of people aged 16 to 24 who use social networks across a selection of countries. As we can see, the average for the OECD is close to 90%.

If today’s young adults continue using social media throughout their life, then it’s likely that social media will continue growing rapidly as internet adoption expands throughout lower-income countries .

The rise of social media in rich countries has come together with an increase in the amount of time spent online

The increase in social media use over the last decade has, of course, come together with a large increase in the amount of time that people spend online.

In the US, adults spend more than 6 hours per day on digital media (apps and websites accessed through mobile phones, tablets, computers and other connected devices such as game consoles). As the chart below shows, this growth has been driven almost entirely by additional time spent on smartphones and tablets.

According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, adults aged 18 to 29 in the US are more likely to get news indirectly via social media than directly from print newspapers or news sites; and they also report being online ‘almost constantly’ .

There is evidence that in other rich countries people also spend many hours per day online. The next chart shows the number of hours young people spend on the internet across a selection of rich countries. As we can see, the average for the OECD is more than 4 hours per day, and in some countries the average is above 6 hours per day.

Some perspective on how fast and profound these rapid changes are

The percentage of US adults who use social media increased from 5% in 2005 to 79% in 2019. Even on a global stage the speed of diffusion is striking: Facebook surged from covering around 1.5% of the world population in 2008, to around 30% in 2018.

How does this compare to the diffusion of other communication technologies that make part of our everyday life today?

The following chart provides some perspective.

Social media’s growth in the US is comparable – in speed and to some extent also in reach – to that of most modern communication-enabling technologies, including computers, smartphones and the internet.

The rise of social media is an extraordinary example of how quickly and drastically social behaviours can change: Something that is today part of the everyday life of one-third of the world population, was unthinkable less than a generation ago.

Fast changes like those brought about by social media always spark fears about possible negative effects. Specifically in the context of social media, a key question is whether these new communication technologies are having a negative impact on our mental health – this is an important question and we cover the evidence at Our World in Data here .

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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16 Reasons Why Social Media Is Important To Your Company

Discover 16 specific ways social media is important for your company and impacts far more than just impressions or awareness for brands.

Before beginning to plan how many times a week to post and on which platforms, first consider the areas of social media that matter for your business.

Working through what objective measures you can use, different ways to leverage it, and why you’re using social media in the first place will help you find the strategy and mix that is right for your business.

Social media is for so much more than brand awareness. It is great for that, yes – but social can also influence your marketing and sales funnels, help build brand authority and reputation, inform product development, provide customer service, and more.

Check out these 16 reasons why social media is important for your company.

What’s the point of social media? I’m talking about our businesses or organizations.

Have you thought about that? If not, that’s step one.

The likely answers have to do with growing audiences, driving traffic, and contributing to business goals. Often, we find that social media strategies are more tactical and less strategic leading to an approach that is disconnected from goals and results.

Whether social is intended to generate awareness, foster engagement, or deliver specific conversion goals, those KPIs or any others can typically be based on growth objectives.

Growing social always sounds like a good idea. Focusing on what we’re growing, how we’re measuring it, and why we’re doing it are the most important aspects to consider when shaping a strategy or plan.

2. Driving Traffic

Assuming one of our goals is to drive traffic and that we want more traffic, social media is a great digital channel or vehicle for doing so.

Yes, there’s often value in impressions and engagement that happen within a social media platform. However, at a certain point or period in time, we’re going to want them to click through to our website and engage with it.

There are a lot of ways to drive traffic to content and resources appropriate for where an audience member is in our community or in their customer journey.

Like other content-based tactics and channels, leveraging social media, we can increase website traffic and further engage with our audiences in ways that provide value to them and get them closer to conversion and our overall goals.

3. Customer Support & Outreach

Beyond marketing objectives, social media allows us to interact with our customers and audiences in ways that we can’t as easily in other channels.

Sure, we can send emails to those that have subscribed. However, when we want to foster community and have open communication with more two-way opportunities, social media is the best channel.

Even if we’re not thinking about social for customer support – at some point – a customer is going to use it to reach us for an issue. Don’t get caught off guard or wait for it to find you.

Leverage social media for customer support , where appropriate, and for outreach for any topics where it makes sense.

Whether community building, charitable ventures, or other uses where you can rally your audience to individually or collectively take action or provide deeper relationships, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to do so.

4. Reputation Management

Many social media sites – especially for B2C businesses – also serve as review and rating websites.

If you’re unaware of which social sites your audience is using and leaving reviews on in your industry, you can miss out on the opportunity to leverage reviews for your benefit.

Plus, you can miss the negative reviews that you have the opportunity to respond to and address professionally to gain the reputation your company deserves.

Social media is a great vehicle for disseminating important company news and messages.

LinkedIn allows for more professional and press release-like communications, but beyond the corporate feeling content, you can leverage many social networks to get positive news out to customers, prospects, and stakeholders about what the company is doing beyond making a profit.

Spreading cheer and gaining goodwill on social media often gains the most engagement from audiences which in turn increases audience sizes over time and impacts visibility in timelines and feeds.

Don’t ignore or underestimate the impact of social on amplifying PR.

In light of Facebook’s changes in filtering promotional content from the organic news feed, we find that PR content does better at getting through in many cases due to higher engagement rates.

6. Being Found

A lot of the time when we think of social media we think of boosted content, ads, and ways to grow our audiences.

Those are all great but don’t forget that social is a place to be found as well.

In some ways, Facebook is a search engine and people search for things in the search bar. Those seeking specific content, topics, conversations, and more have the potential of finding your profile, page, or presence.

Make sure you have an up-to-date presence leveraging all of the content you can load into your page details and be mindful of pinned content and things that are within the first view and first impression when someone lands on your page.

Be mindful of how “findable” you are in social media platforms. Think about optimization and don’t leave that out of your social media strategy.

Things like reviews, hours, location information, and more influence local search results and authority status within social platforms and beyond (ex: Google Maps).

7. Local Search

Speaking of maps and local search . The local search ecosystem and algorithms look beyond the information verified in Google My Business and other native maps platforms.

Part of the outward look at directories includes social media networks. The location-specific information and attributes of social pages and profiles factor into local search authority status and rankings.

A well-optimized social media page’s benefits go beyond the social media network and extend to local search. Don’t undervalue this aspect.

There’s a lot of information (and misinformation) about the impact of social media on SEO .

Regardless of the debates over causation, correlation, and whether there are signals built directly into search engine algorithms that relate to social media, there’s consensus within digital marketing that if you’re doing SEO, you should be thinking about social, as well.

Creating a clear link between websites and owned social profiles is a must. Beyond that, creating feeds to bring social content into websites and having links back to social profile pages is important.

Beyond that, I strongly recommend putting together a plan to create as much content and gain as much engagement on social sites as industry-leading competitors in the traditional marketplace, search rankings, and social media realms.

9. Funnel Development

Social media has the potential of impacting different levels of your marketing funnel. It is most often thought of as a way to generate awareness – and it does offer an opportunity to do a great job at that.

Much like a keyword strategy for search, you can map out a content strategy to address your audience where they are in their journey. Having content and ways to engage those who are not yet aware of or are being reintroduced to your brand is important.

Once you’ve captured your audience and you’re consistently delivering great content to them, you can get them to engage and go deeper. That includes the traffic you drive to your site.

Don’t be afraid to set up funnels and retargeting in your social media plan that ultimately gets to the “ask” or the conversion. You don’t have to shy away from driving leads and sales from social.

If you feel it isn’t the place for it, I’d politely ask you to reconsider and make sure that your calls to action are placed properly and at the right moment in your relationship with the content and the customer.

10. Agile Marketing

While big content investments are still made in gated content, books, ebooks , and research studies, agile marketing has emerged as a necessary approach. It includes small content investments and quick testing to make adjustments.

Rather than investing six months and six figures in a big content project, try out smaller pieces, learn how the audience responds, and use that information to guide the continuing investment in content.

Social media is the perfect place to try pieces of content, ideas, and judge interest and engagement as it is cheap, quick, and easy to deploy within.

11. Prospecting

Compared to some other digital marketing channels, social media can have a different type of reach.

Search relies on people looking for what we have to offer when they plug in a specific query.

Email marketing is limited to our existing audience unless we’re buying lists.

Social media offers the opportunity to get in front of a larger referral audience organically when followers engage with content making it show up in their networks’ feeds.

Additionally, we have many options for sponsoring content and advertising that allow us to proactively target the extended networks of followers as well as choose demographic and interest-based campaigns.

Through the sponsored and advertising options on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook/Instagram, we can expand our prospect audiences proactively in ways that we can’t in other channels.

12. Thought Leadership

If one of your goals is to build and establish thought leadership over time, then social media platforms can help you do so.

While most of the content we’re creating likely is posted and housed on our own websites that positions us as an industry leader, if we’re just posting it on our sites, we’re kind of just talking about ourselves.

When we use social media to gain reach, tie into influencer audiences, and find ways to amplify the content, then we allow our audiences to determine the quality of the content and authority status we deserve in the industry.

13. Promoting Content

In some ways in line with developing thought leadership, more broadly we can use social media to promote content. Thought leadership is building trust and authority status. It includes content.

When we’re mindful of what our audience wants and it is in alignment with what we want our audience to engage with, we can promote content for specific objectives. Some might be general awareness or staying in front of the audience.

In other cases, we can promote content that serves specific needs and features calls-to-action that drive someone to engage at a different level.

Whether it is sales-driven, community-based, charitable, or driven by our objectives, we have the opportunity to promote the content of our choice to our audience and beyond.

14. Content Ideas From Your Audience

User-generated content is awesome any time you can get it. Whether that is a forum (assuming things are positive about your brand, products, and services), FAQs, or other crowd-sourced ideas, UGC is big for building your editorial calendar.

You can do specific research, survey, or look at common questions asked by your audience to generate ideas for your content roadmap. You can also go even deeper by doing some first-party research through social media and your audience.

Surveying or focus grouping topics in an informal way can fuel new content you create based on the responses and sentiment you get from your audience.

Be open to asking, structuring your “ask,” and generating ideas from your audience to make sure you’re opening up a two-way street and delivering on what they want, not what you assume they want.

15. Gaining Industry Insight

Beyond the focus of our own posting and efforts to gain more attention, engagement, and ROI, we can also listen and learn a lot in social media.

By monitoring your competitors , using social listening tools to keep tabs on shifts in your audience, and staying engaged ourselves and through our companies, we can gain insights.

These insights can advise strategy, inspire content, help with product decisions, and fan out into bigger marketing intelligence initiatives.

16. Recruitment

Your content matters to job seekers.

LinkedIn is one of the best recruiting tools out there. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other sources are also important for showing what the company culture is like and helping sell candidates on their decision to join your organization.

Yes, recruiter seats are popular and most of the time worth the investment on LinkedIn in addition to job postings.

However, if all you’re doing is recruiting and missing the boat on marketing your company through social to your ideal candidates, you could be losing out on who you want to hire.

My hope is that by walking through the reasons why social media is important to your company, that some of these areas resonate with you and that others challenge you to dig deeper.

There are so many more opportunities beyond organic posts a few times a week. You have avenues for two-way communication and direct feedback from your audience. You can impact other digital marketing channels like search. You can build a leadership position in your industry.

No matter how big or small and how broad or local your business is, social media should have some level of importance and has a lot of potential impact for driving toward your online and overall business goals.

More Resources:

• How to Create Engaging Social Media Content: 12 Tips to Drive Results
• 15 Awesome Examples of Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide

Featured Image: Graphic farm/Shutterstock

Corey is the owner and President/CEO of Voltage. He has spent nearly 20 years working in strategic and leadership roles ...

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Benefits of social media for businesses, importance of social media in 2024 and beyond.

Everyone today is on some social media platform . Teenagers on TikTok, influencers and small businesses on Instagram and Facebook , or professionals on LinkedIn - social media is the first option that comes to mind when looking for expanding connections in any field.

Social media - if used intelligently - can bring in loads of success. Since it is the best form of direct contact with the target audience, these platforms have what it takes to make anyone's life better. To understand this better, here are a few aspects that reflect the importance of social media in today's world.

1. Staying Connected With the People 

It is next to impossible to meet your friends and relatives every day in today's world of increasing stress and workload. However, dropping a short text asking about their day or sharing your achievements are a few ways you can still maintain healthy contact with your close ones or corporate colleagues. Social media platforms have effectively bridged this communication gap.

2. Staying Opinionated 

In our daily lives, we may not necessarily be surrounded by people who think in the same direction as we do. A difference in opinion is bound to occur. However, we can share our opinions safely and even find people online who think the same way as us on social media platforms. It even paves the way to gaining a strong voice for the situations you feel are essential to discuss and have a fruitful discussion.

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3. Entertainment

There is so much more to social media than just work, communication and branding. Sometimes, all we want is a little entertainment at the end of the day. Social media platforms provide tired individuals with customized feeds consisting of memes, news, and short clips of videos as per the user's activity. It provides people with a much-needed break from their busy schedules.

1. Direct Contact With Target Audience

Thanks to social media platforms, you don't have to call or email people randomly to check if they are interested in your brand or not. With almost the whole world on social media, it is now possible that your target audience is simply a click away from you. Using hashtags, you can directly land your brand on your target audiences' page - giving yourself an enormous reach.

2. Increasing Popularity With Ease

For people in the content and digital marketing arena, the ability to attract popularity is what matters most. The social media platforms provide such a section of people with precisely what they're looking for - increased exposure. Carrying out simple, engaging tasks such as answering queries, posting times, and so on would ensure that you blow up on these sites after some time. Even though it requires some time investment, the hefty returns are worth it at the end of the day.

3. Better Traffic

Since there is a wide diversity of active people on social media, the scope for diverse traffic is also broadened. Optimizing social media per your needs can ensure that you receive visits and traffic from various people. Since today people are on their phones most of the time, it is highly likely that people would come across your brand or work. Proper usage of keywords and other SEO guidelines would also ensure heavier and better traffic.

4. Create a Lasting Image

If you are looking to work so that your piece of content leaves an imprint on the viewer's brain, using social media is the best way to go about it. Granted, people do look at their emails too. But how often can we find people spending hours surfing through their emails? In contrast, people love spending countless hours surfing through social media on their phones. Hence, if you can optimize your work efficiently there, you will likely leave your mark.

5. Collaborations

Another effective way social media platforms benefit businesses is by providing the means to collaborate with appropriate accounts. Today, there are many influencers on every social media platform - each open to promoting the product they deem fit for their followers. Businesses looking to grow usually contact such influencers who do pay ads on their page, bringing heavy traffic to the business account.

6. Availability of Tools for Analysis 

Another aspect of social media that fuels its importance amongst businesses and content creators is the option to look into the insights. Hence, business and content accounts can analyze their posts and understand which post gained the most popularity and why - and how they can improve their feed. On Instagram, there is an option for post insights for professional accounts - where one can see which posts got the most saves, likes, or reaches.

7. Get Inspired 

Since most content and business pages are public, one can quickly go through their feeds and gain inspiration. If your account is not doing exceptionally well compared to the other accounts in the field, you can analyze their feeds and see what you're missing out on. Fixing these problems may help boost your popularity immensely.

Even though the extreme usage of social media is a debatable topic, we can never overlook the importance of social media and the immense opportunities that it provides its users with. With various benefits and validations of the importance of social media listed above, hopefully, you will be able to use these platforms for your benefit as much as possible. If you wish to master social media marketing you should enroll in Simplilearn's Post Graduate Program in Digital Marketing and become a successful AI-driven marketer! 

1. What makes Social Media so impactful in today’s world?

Ans. One of the most important impacts of social media in today's world lies within its ability to distribute information to the whole world. With most people on some other social media platforms today, no news of importance cools down without proper discussion. By doing so, social media platforms act as a unifying unit of various kinds of people.

2. What will happen if Social Media goes down in the near future?

Ans. As we head closer to a developed society every single day, the scope of digitalization broadens. With this key fact in mind, there are no chances of social media and its importance going down anytime soon. If anything, the importance and dependence on social media are only predicted to increase as time passes.

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• v.15(1); 2023 Jan

Social Media Role and Its Impact on Public Health: A Narrative Review

Sushim kanchan.

1 Epidemiology and Public Health, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, IND

Abhay Gaidhane

Social media refers to online social networking sites and is a broad example of Web 2.0, such as Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, WhatsApp, and blogs. It is a new and ever-changing field. Access to the internet, social media platforms and mobile communications are all tools that can be leveraged to make health information available and accessible. This research aimed to conduct an introductory study of the existing published literature on why to choose and how to use social media to obtain population health information and to gain knowledge about various health sectors like disease surveillance, health education, health research, health and behavioral modification, influence policy, enhance professional development and doctor-patient relation development. We searched for publications using databases like PubMed, NCBI, and Google Scholar, and combined 2022 social media usage statistics from PWC, Infographics Archive, and Statista online websites. The American Medical Association (AMA) policy about Professionalism in Social Media Use, American College of Physicians-Federations of State Medical Boards (ACP-FSMB) guidelines for Online Medical Professionalism, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) social media violations were also briefly reviewed. Our findings reflect the benefits and drawbacks of using web platforms and how they impact public health ethically, professionally, and socially. During our research, we discovered that social media's impact on public health concerns is both positive and negative, and we attempted to explain how social networks are assisting people in achieving health, which is still a source of much debate.

Introduction and background

The term "social media" was first used to describe the evolution of Web 2.0 applications that are open and social in nature [ 1 ]. Web 2.0 social networking sites are broad online platforms where people can communicate and share information and as we enter the digital age, this media platform is becoming more popular. With 3.81 billion active social media users in April 2020 [ 1 , 2 ], increasing access to the internet and mobile phone connections, more people have access to public health information more quickly and directly than ever before.

In the world of social media, 2020 was extremely important, world's most popular social media website, Facebook, has 1.1 billion monthly users [ 3 ] in 2013 which got increased to 2.9 million by 2022 [ 4 ]. Globally, there are more than 3.6 billion users of social media, and by 2025, that number is projected to increase to 4.41 billion [ 5 ]. It was found that YouTube is the second most actively used networking site after Facebook, with 2,562 million users in 2022. WhatsApp had 2000 million, Wein/WeChat - 1,263; TikTok - 1,000; Facebook Messenger - 988; Snapchat - 557; Telegram - 550; Pinterest - 444; Twitter - 436; Reddit - 430, and Quora - 300 million active users. Figure ​ Figure1 1 is a percentage-based compilation of global usage data from January 2022 for all mentioned social media networks.

For several reasons, online social media platforms appear to have much potential for public health campaigns. For instance, they can connect with very reasonably large audiences, Facebook has 1.1 billion monthly users [ 3 ] in 2013. Second, messages can be sent to personal contacts, possibly making them more advantageous than traditional health marketing tactics [ 6 ]. Third, user involvement and retention are typically high on online social networks in contrast to conventional web-based interventions [ 7 ]. Finally, because social media involves users taking an active role and creating content, it can be more impactful than traditional websites [ 8 ]. Various studies provided an overview of social media's potential as a tool for health interventions, socializing with supportive friends and family, talking about your emotions, healthy behavior change and counseling, health campaigns, medical education, disease outbreak surveillance, health research, and more [ 9 ]. These recent developments contemplate how social media offers healthcare professionals and patients opportunities to communicate affordably and reciprocally, which can positively impact current medical practice.

Despite the promising strategies Web 2.0 technologies and eHealth applications provide, it raises many questions, establishing trust, adhering to rules, and choosing the best content are just a few of these [ 10 ]. A lot of user-generated content (UGC) from self-media and various facts about the epidemic on social media have a significant emotional undertone [ 11 ]. It shed light on the patterns and characteristics of how users' emotional dispositions change during times of public health emergency [ 11 ], and how social networking can influence people's and groups' decision-making behavior [ 12 ], potentially increasing the risk of misinformation, various conspiracy theories, stigma, violence, and religious-cultural sentiments damage. Overusing social media has been linked to significant issues with the mental health of both adults and adolescents. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the anxiety associated with the motivation to keep up with what other people are doing on social media. Cyberbullying, sleep disruption, stress, depression, and false prestige are just a few of the negative effects of social media on today's youth. Other challenges that can arise are offending people and defaming their relationships and reputations, either unintentionally or intentionally [ 13 ]. It can be difficult to use numerous social networking sites for medical purposes to improve communication because one must be sure that the information is accurate and easily accessible [ 10 ]. Due to concerns with compliance, trust, and patient privacy, social media has been warned about having a significant negative impact on doctor-patient relationships [ 14 ]. However, the accepted protocols for using web networks to transmit health information have not yet been investigated. Another topic that has to be investigated is how people view and use personal health data and cultural and social standards that vary by region.

This narrative study intends to shed light on the potential use of social media as a new platform for the population health and healthcare industries. It was also emphasized that it was important to examine the many difficulties that could arise when using this platform for the health sectors and to provide guidelines on certain key social media usage best practices.

The topic "Social Media Role and Its Impact on Public Health" was thoroughly researched using databases and websites for up-to-date related data and literature, such as PubMed, NCBI, and Google Scholar. Search terms included social media, social networking, public health, online health information, online health communication, online health management, social media platforms, social media usage statistics, HIPAA violation, and legal and ethical standards. In addition, an online search was conducted using a search engine such as Google to discover health sites data from five portals and websites including 2022 social media usage statistics from PWC, Infographics Archive, and Statista online domains on some of the most well-known social media toolkits. Figure ​ Figure2 2 shows the inclusion and exclusion criteria of this study and Figure ​ Figure3 3 shows the summary status of this study.

The image is created by the author (ASR) of this study.

Role of social media in public health

Disease Surveillance and Public Health Surveillance

Social-networking sites for clinicians, patients, and the general public hold potential for harnessing the collective wisdom of the masses for public health surveillance. Organizations like the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network of the World Health Organization (WHO) also relies on web sources for up-to-date surveillance activities as data were not captured via any traditional method [ 15 ]. A 2018 study conducted by Yasmin and her team examined geolocated tweets for public health surveillance during a mass gathering in Canada and compare Twitter data against other data sources for heat alerts during the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games. His study stated that Syndromic surveillance uses pre-diagnostic data, and the inclusion of syndromic data sources in public health surveillance for mass gatherings has been shown is useful [ 16 ].

The platform has an opportune disease surveillance area, improving its capability to detect disease outbreaks. Media and techniques known as user-generated information and real-time information surveillance of various public health outcomes, such as influenza, foodborne illnesses, or heat alerts, can identify cases of infectious diseases more quickly, which in the case of alerts, may permit investigation or action. A study conducted by Wakamiya et al. in 2018 using Twitter to detect Influenza outbreaks via geotagging tweets and trapped sensors supported the evidence [ 17 ]. Another study, Platform for Automated Extraction of Disease Information from the Web, by Arsevska et al., developed a platform to detect automatically animal infection outbreaks in France from their online news sources (PADI-web). Data were retrieved from 4,500 news websites, including Google News [ 18 ]. This paper serves as an excellent illustration of how such a web-based system has been fully implemented and evaluated. Using text categorization, authors Effland et al. created a system for finding foodborne illnesses reported in Yelp restaurant reviews. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) uses the system to track concerns about foodborne illnesses on Yelp [ 19 ].

Health Researchers

Studies have shown that social media is used by health researchers for a variety of research-related goals. The platform is most frequently utilized to find participants and get data from the Internet (e.g., content analysis of social media posts and data mining on social media) [ 20 ]. It also helps in networking with colleagues and knowledge users, to distribute public health research, for example, sharing links about scientific publications or research on social media can help to broaden readership, exponentially increasing reach [ 21 ]. We identified the three most popular social media platforms in 2020; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as the major social media platforms in use for health research [ 22 ]. Professional associations, public health organizations (such as WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)), and hospitals frequently communicate via social media about science and health [ 21 ]. Social media is used by all major news organizations, giving additional distribution channels and ways to mix current events with smartphone capabilities [ 21 ].

Enhance Professional Development

There are many opportunities for professional engagement outside of conventional contexts due to the growing social media presence of academics, physicians, business professionals, public health departments, and healthcare systems. Public health experts can interact with the public through several Twitter chats, including CDC chats [ 21 ].

Influence Policy

Sharing arguments in favor of or against health policies with the general public, decision-makers, and other important stakeholders is made possible by social media. Using social media to inform constituents about proposed laws and encouraging them to contact political representatives to voice their ideas can have an impact on politicians' behavior because politicians are driven to please their voters. Social media is becoming more and more important in discussions of politics and policy, as evidenced by the president's massive Twitter following and usage of the platform to interact directly with the people [ 21 ].

Combat Misinformation

Suppose public health professionals are more active on social media. In that case, it may be possible to mitigate the impacts of people making false claims and to boost fact-checking initiatives by making more accurate online health information available. Hence, social media interaction with experts might help dispel incorrect information [ 21 ].

Health and Behavioral Change

In a study released in 2022 by Bonar et al., the authors employed social media adverts to target young people who engaged in risky drinking and came up with some encouraging findings [ 23 ]. The prevalence of cannabis use among emerging adults (aged 18 to 25) necessitates preventive measures. Bonar et al. conducted another study in 2022 to develop an eight-week persuasive questioning and behavioral intervention focusing on cannabis usage among emerging adults using the unique platform of social media [ 24 ].

Health Promotion

The included research showed that various social media outlets could raise the degree of women's health promotion [ 25 ], awareness of menstrual hygiene, understanding of breast cancer awareness [ 26 ], breastfeeding techniques [ 27 ], and adherence, self-perception and promotion of oral health [ 28 , 29 ], significant use of antibiotics [ 30 ], consistency with exercise, sexual health promotion [ 31 ], road safety awareness [ 32 ], smoking cessation, adverse drug reaction reporting [ 33 ], and many more in a row.

Healthcare Provider’s Perspectives on Social Media Usage

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are constantly looking for better and more effective ways to reach greater audiences, particularly those who were difficult to reach through conventional techniques. This social networking platform offers professionals for health promotion with cost-effective opportunities to advance their careers by building communities of professionals, participating in professional development activities, and meliorating classroom learning [ 34 ]. These interactive tools and platforms are already commonplace in clinical settings, and many practitioners use them to connect with their target audience on both a personal and professional level [ 34 ].

Patients’ Perspectives on Social Media Usage

In social media, there are 74% of Internet users, and 80% of those use social media to research doctors, hospitals, and medical news and information [ 35 ]. Consumers on social media who view health-related consumer reviews are 42% and 32% of users share their friends' or family members' health experiences (PWC) [ 36 ]. In the most popular use social platform Facebook, 28% of health conversations support a health-related cause (from the Infographics Archive) [ 36 ]. Susannah Fox, Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, refers to this emerging trend as "peer-to-peer health care," explaining that "patients are willing to share what they know, related to health, treatments, sources, facilities." "Peer-to-peer health care" is described by Fox as "the most exciting innovation in health care today" [ 13 ].

Due to patients' improved knowledge of health information and their increased involvement in maintaining their health, social media has indisputably altered the relationship between patients and practitioners. Other areas where social media can be helpful for patients include identifying health professionals, peer support and sharing experiences, promoting healthy behavior, and so on [ 37 ]. It may improve health outcomes by facilitating communication about health issues between general health professionals, patients, and the public.

Table ​ Table1 1 enlists studies conducted all over the world on the use of social media as a tool in various health sectors.

Challenges to using social media for health purposes

Misinformation

The longest impediment to the internet, in general, is that it's open to everyone; anyone can post information on any topic they want [ 10 ]. This turns people into self-appointed experts and (knowingly or unknowingly) spreads false information, certain online information can have different points of view and vary depending on geographical and cultural factors [ 10 ]. These conflict-causing situations are tactics to deal with, and how users sharing that information can be protected are some of the digital era’s other challenges.

Patient Privacy Concerns

Due to data confidentiality concerns, some patients are hesitant to share information via the web platform [ 36 ]. Posting distinguishable health information on these platforms without concern for patients would undoubtedly create unfaith and overstep their privacy boundary, as well as question occupation as a whole. If the staff does not follow the necessary guidelines, social media can lead to HIPAA violations (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) [ 36 ]. In some cases, the content posted by healthcare professionals on their social accounts was so bad that the provider who published the content that drew criticism left the platform altogether - Reputational Harm [ 10 ].

Social Media and Mental Health

Although the majority of college students use social media without incident, a minority percentage of users engage in excessive or compulsive behavior on these platforms. Problematic social media use is a behavioral addiction defined by excessive worry over online activities, uncontrollable cravings to access or use social media, and spending so much time and energy on social media that it has a negative influence on significant parts of one's life. In India, 19.9% of college students that use social media have problematic social media [ 43 ]. It is understandable that parents, policymakers, and researchers all want to know how adolescents' frequent use of social media affects their mental health because it gives them numerous opportunities to engage in risky behaviors, join questionable communities, and interact with strangers without parental supervision [ 44 ].

Public Health Emergencies and Social Media

People and communities experience stress during public health emergencies. It is challenging to disseminate official public health information on infectious diseases because people frequently get information from social contacts through personal interactions or social media, subject to bias and misunderstanding. Misinformation during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019 was associated with aggression, mistrust, social unrest, and targeted assaults on healthcare workers [ 45 ]. During the SARS outbreak in China in 2002-2003, Asian people faced social stigma as a result of their fear of contracting the disease [ 45 ]. Rumors about COVID-19 have been labeled a global enemy by the UN secretary-general [ 45 ]. Although debunking research has demonstrated that well-designed corrections can reduce the effects of false information, nothing is known about the effects of correction in the context of protracted social media arguments [ 46 ].

Subjecting Ethical Issue

Patients must be empowered with accurate and up-to-date information about their health to make fully informed treatment decisions, as their autonomy should be valued [ 47 ]. Physicians should be held accountable for using the powers endowed upon them by the patient's trust as trust is a pillar of the medical profession [ 47 ], and their healthcare practice should be motivated by good intentions at all times. Indeed, when using social media to connect with patients directly or share information, physicians as healthcare professionals should always consider the proper measure while communicating or sharing content [ 47 ]. When using social media, one should be mindful of the rules and ethical considerations. Information subjecting to harm someone's beliefs, norms, or any religious concerns is another major issue.

Legal Requirements for Social Media Use in the Health Sector

Guidelines are especially useful in new and evolving areas. If information or practices turn out to be incomparable, guidelines are created to connect them [ 2 ]. The guidelines aim to suggest, discover, and guide learners through questionnaires [ 2 ]. Medical schools have taken disciplinary action against amateurish digital information posted by medical students, including dismissal in some cases [ 48 ]. In November 2010, the American Medical Association (AMA) issued a policy statement about how professionals should use social media channels cautiously, separating professional and personal profiles and keeping patient details private [ 48 ]. Similarly, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) outlines some similar areas [ 49 ]. The American College of Physicians-Federations of State Medical Boards (ACP-FSMB) guidelines on Online Medical Professionalism state that guidelines are a baseline and starting point which needs to be evolved or restructured timely by parallelly adopting advanced technologies and eventually emerging with best practices [ 2 ]. They also worked on social media and web networking usage guidelines [ 2 ]. Nevertheless, there are still concerns about maintaining professional boundaries when using social media. In addition, there are still no agreements on what constitutes professional Internet behavior, except for the most horrific mistakes in professional unethical and illegal activities [ 49 ]. Even though it is difficult to measure and teach professionalism objectively, progress is being made in areas such as confidential patient details, pharmaceutical companies’ involvement details, ethics, and a lawsuit, skills of interaction, and portable health insurance [ 49 ].

Mix influence

Social media platforms allow for the exchange of health-related information, health promotion, policy influence, the development of relationships between healthcare practitioners and patients, the identification of drug misuse or misunderstandings among the general public, the dissemination of accurate information, and the collection of concurrent health data. This platform is used by public health organizations such as the WHO's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network for real-time surveillance [ 15 ]. It appears to be a useful platform for health researchers looking to recruit participants and collect data from the Internet. These online platforms appear to be a useful way of providing behavioral counseling, lending credence to the idea that social networking influences individual and group decision-making. Trust, compliance, and knowledgeable content should be prioritized for social media to have an impact on the population, which in turn has an impact on public health. More research is needed to determine how to promote healthy behaviors and collect and disseminate reliable information using these tools. False-positive data, on the other hand, continues to impede the accuracy of the Internet-based monitoring system. Patient privacy concerns, as well as religious-cultural sentiments, can all be easily violated as a result of an undefined policy of using social media to spread violence and disbelief. Social media acts as a quick platform during a public emergency for disseminating rumors, exposing false information and conspiracy theories, and escalating fear and stigma directed at specific people and locations. Numerous challenges, including authority, professionalism, confidentiality, customs, information quality, and secrecy, as well as the tremendous role that social networks play in medical and public health care, remain unaddressed.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that social media is an emerging platform with numerous opportunities for us to use it in public health and that it has an impact on the relationship between physician and patient, public trust in the system, and potential lawsuits, as well as changes in various health sectors such as health interventions, behavioral modification and promotion, health campaigns, medical education, disease outbreak surveillance, health research, and more. Because of the two ends of the spectrum, our analysis shows that, while social media can be a powerful tool for the public health sector in the current digital era, there are also drawbacks to consider. These booming platforms are not exempt from these drawbacks, which include potential moral, ethical, legal, and privacy violations, professional behavior concerns, compliance-related issues, and societal ramifications. In addition, some major ethical issues are discussed briefly, the AMA policy about professionalism in social media use, ACP-FSMB guidelines for Online Medical Professionalism, and HIPAA social media violations are used to present certain proposed regulations and guidelines for using social media for the population's health, which may be applied for avoiding such consequences.

To summarize, even if there are multiple issues, risks, and dangers, we can overcome these obstacles and utilize technology to its fullest extent if problems are addressed, acknowledged, and tried to be eliminated. Focusing on how we might use social media and its attendant demands is both necessary and ethical because it may be difficult to achieve continuous growth and evolution without setting adequate criteria and regulations for doing so. The limited and conflicting results of critical evaluations of previously published research on the influence of social media on public health issues give credibility to this argument. Our research indicates that the use of social media in public health has conflicting results, and it is advised that more research be done in this area.

The content published in Cureus is the result of clinical experience and/or research by independent individuals or organizations. Cureus is not responsible for the scientific accuracy or reliability of data or conclusions published herein. All content published within Cureus is intended only for educational, research and reference purposes. Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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How to create a social media presentation for any business and brand (+ bonus tips for newbies)

What is social media presentation.

In the digital age, where attention spans are shrinking, creating an effective social media presentation is crucial for capturing and retaining any client’s interest. For example, when a business is looking for a social media manager (SMM) to boost their company’s social media presence, they want to know what will be done before it is actually done: what results they’ll get and what methods will be used to achieve them. That’s when a social media presentation comes in handy as the most attractive and informative way to introduce a business PowerPoint presentation .

If you wonder how to present a social media strategy, consider the below tips to help guide your path forward. In today’s article, we’ll walk you through the essential steps to create an impactful social media strategy PPT for any platform that not only conveys your message effectively but also engages your client, so dive right in!

How to create a social media strategy presentation?

Before you design slides, you need to have text, images, or infographics to add. A social media PowerPoint presentation must be related to content such as your social media strategy. Below, we share the steps that will help you craft an impactful social media marketing presentation for client they will never forget!

Disclaimer: You should not limit yourself to just one slide, e.g., to show the target audience, and we’ll now give you an approximate skeleton to follow.

Set goals: Slide 1 ⎼ Social media goals

To present informative social media presentation slides, you should have a solid discussion with the client to discover their business goals and transform them into social media goals. It will impact further brand presentation and research on the target audience, competitors, and promotion methods. In such a presentation, your clients will expect clear and tangible metrics.

For example, a shoe company wants to boost its sales using Instagram. In this case, you have to create goals of getting more conversions in sales, like increased clicks to the company’s website. Your social media analytics presentation should depict how a specific promotion method on a specific platform will give specific numbers.

Pro advice: Use Google Analytics for enhanced tracking and PowerPoint redesign services to create compelling diagrams.

Research your audience: Slide 2 ⎼ Target audience

Most clients know the “persona” they are marketing to, but your task is understanding if desirable business goals match the typical buyer persona. If the client doesn’t know their target audience, you should make recommendations but still try to discover the location, age, occupation, or favorite game of the people they want to reach. The more criteria you know, the more targeted tone and voice you will be able to use to influence people’s choices.

Research competitors: Slide 3 ⎼ Competitors

An effective social media marketing presentation ppt has to analyze direct competitors that definitely exist. And their SMM has already tried promotion strategies for you to learn from or avoid. Researching competitors is about thinking outside the box and analyzing their mistakes or successes. Your client should not be present on every platform, so do research and explore which ones will work best for their business.

When looking at competitors, consider two main things:

• MARKET GAP (e.g., there is no podcast about house plant care).
• LEAD ENGAGEMENT (e.g., they get fantastic traffic from Instagram).

Remember, researching competitors teaches you what to do and what not to do: posting frequency, type of content, followings of their followers, and more.

Do social media audit: Slide 4 ⎼ Social media analysis

Any social media report presentation must summarize what the company is already doing. It may be a new company you have to launch social media channels for, and it may be an experienced business looking for a new strategy.

If you create a social media strategy for an existing company, you have to audit its media to define baseline metrics: the number of followers, demographic data, average engagements, content performance, and other important analytics.

If you create a social media strategy for a startup, you will have what to offer only after researching their personas and suitable social media. For example, the target audience is women aged 40 to 55 living in the suburbs, so you offer to go with Facebook.

Set up the infrastructure: Slide 5 ⎼ Content posting tools

In the case of a new company, setting up the infrastructure means doing manual work or making use of SOPs to automate processes.

Answer the following questions if you’re going to do everything manually:

• Am I going to post things natively?
• How are we going to get the content calendars approved?
• Am I the only one to contact/answer the audience in DM/messaging?

In the case of established companies, they will most probably onboard you on a tool they already use and assign a colleague for you to master it quickly.

Create a content calendar: Slide 6 ⎼ Instagram/Facebook/TikTok content calendar

The last thing is putting together your content calendar and content into motion, which can be the hardest part. The last slides in the social media presentations ppt show an example of a post and calendar in tools like CoSchedule. For instance, you will post stories daily, behind-the-scenes images twice a week, and share product posts thrice weekly.

Regardless of plenty of scheduling tools, we advise building a simple content calendar in Excel Spreadsheets to send directly to a client and get approval/feedback.

6 bonus tips for newbies

Tip #1: develop a compelling storyline.

Every effective presentation tells a story, and social media presentations are no exception. Craft a compelling narrative that takes your client on a journey, keeping them engaged from start to finish. Begin with a strong introduction, followed by a clear progression of ideas, and conclude with a memorable closing. Remember, a well-structured storyline can enhance the overall impact of your social media content strategy presentation.

Tip #2: Design eye-catching visuals

Visual elements play a crucial role in any presentation. Create visually appealing graphics, images, and videos that complement your content and are consistent with the brand’s aesthetics. Then, ensure they are optimized to maintain a professional and cohesive look across different devices.

Pro advice: If design is not your cup of tea, consider hiring a professional PowerPoint redesign company to create beautiful icons, diagrams, and other visuals for you.

Tip #3: Incorporate engaging multimedia

Diversify your content by incorporating various multimedia elements. Leverage the power of videos, GIFs, and interactive elements to captivate your client even more.

Tip #4: Keep your social media presentation ppt concise

In the fast-paced world of social media, conciseness is key, so keep your presentation focused on the essential points. Avoid overwhelming your client with excessive information. Instead, prioritize clarity and simplicity to ensure your message is easily digestible. Consider using bullet points, short sentences, and impactful visuals to convey your ideas efficiently.

Tip #5: Leverage data and statistics

Support your claims and statements with relevant data and statistics. Incorporating credible information not only adds authenticity to your presentation on social media strategy but also helps build trust with your client. However, be sure to attribute your sources to enhance credibility.

Tip #6: Optimize for mobile

With the increasing use of smartphones, optimizing your presentation for mobile devices is crucial. Ensure that your content is responsive and looks appealing on smaller screens. Test your presentation on various devices to identify and address any formatting issues. A mobile-friendly presentation enhances accessibility and caters to the preferences of on-the-go clients.

Creating an effective social media campaign presentation requires a thoughtful combination of understanding the client’s needs and their target audience, compelling storytelling, and visually engaging content. By following the tips outlined above, you’ll be well-equipped to craft presentations your client will most definitely appreciate.

In case you need any help with social media slide design, don’t hesitate to contact us for professional assistance. Our presentation design experts are available to help 24/7/365!

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Social Media Strategy Presentation

Your social media strategy has many moving parts: background research, campaign goals, task lists, deliverables, and more. That’s why your social media strategy presentation has to be comprehensive, organized, and easy to understand.

A customizable, intuitive social media strategy deck template can relieve some of the stress of building your own presentation, allowing you to focus on sharing important information with your social media team. 

Use a social media strategy presentation template to:

• Present research, goals, and strategies to executives
• Keep social media team members informed
• Check in on social media campaign progress and deliverables

Create a stunning Social Media Strategy Presentation

Every slide in your social media strategy presentation template fills an important role, so choose them carefully. While putting together your social media strategy deck slides, think about adding graphs, comparison charts, timelines, or a SWOT analysis to make your points visually. Some potential slides to include are:

Pro tips for your Social Media Strategy Deck Template

Consider these tips when creating your social media strategy deck.

A good rule of thumb for your social media presentation: provide an overview before diving into the details. This kind of structure may help your slides connect and flow naturally.

Charts, graphs, timelines, diagrams, and other graphics can transform your social media strategy presentation into a memorable, meaningful one.

Think about including pauses or breaks for Q&A into your social media strategy presentation.

Limit one idea or one topic to one slide. Overcrowding each slide makes it harder for your audience to absorb and remember the information, as well as execute on it.

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How to give better social media presentations (free templates included)

Written by by Ronnie Gomez

Published on  December 11, 2023

Reading time  6 minutes

Public speaking skills are a career accelerator, especially in social media marketing . According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™ , more than half (61%) of marketers agree the most effective way to share social metrics with executive leadership is through in-person presentations or meetings. Whether you’re on Zoom or in a meeting room, you have to speak on your data if you want to get ahead.

If that makes your palms sweaty, don’t panic. Skills can be learned. It just takes time and practice.

If you’re ready to start giving more compelling social media presentations, you’re in the right spot. In this article, you’ll find a list of the essential elements of a social media marketing presentation, expert advice on speech delivery and templates to speed up your deck creation process.

What is a social media presentation?

A social media presentation is a speech, lecture or pitch in which elements of a social media strategy are shared and explained to an audience—senior leaders, internal stakeholders, clients, etc.

Like a snowflake, no two presentations are the same. Every social media marketing presentation is tailored to the needs of a specific situation or goal. Broadly, these presentations can be categorized into the following:

• Pitch presentations : Here, the speaker aims to persuade the audience on a strategic initiative. This could involve pitching services to a potential client in an agency setting, or in-house teams pitching a new tool or process.
• Update presentations : These presentations keep stakeholders informed about the progress of a strategy—wins, opportunities, lessons learned, etc.
• Knowledge-sharing presentations: The speaker aims to educate stakeholders on insights gained through social media data collection .

Each of these presentations has the power to give your social media efforts new meaning. They clarify the return on investment (ROI) of your social media strategy by creating more tangible connections between your work and its results.

The 4 elements of a persuasive social media presentation

It can be difficult to tell when a presentation is ready to share. After spending hours developing a talk track and creating a deck, the lines between critical information and fluff can blur. The following list will help you plan and audit presentations to ensure they’re well-received every time.

1. A cohesive narrative

Why are you delivering your social media presentation?

Behind every exceptional presentation lies a central thesis—a significant idea or perspective that you intend to convey to your audience. Even routine performance updates should have a driving purpose.

Starting from this point will align all of the information you incorporate—from your opening hook to your concluding thoughts—to create a cohesive, compelling story.

2. Succinct slides

Each slide you present should be simple, focused and void of unnecessary distractions. According to Paul Jurczynski, a TED Talk coach and cofounder of Improve Presentation, “The golden rule is to have one claim or idea per slide. If you have more to say, put it on the next slide.”

3. Compelling data visualizations

Social media marketing presentations often come down to proving ROI for stakeholders. Data visualization like graphs and charts are a compelling way to make your case.

In data journalist David McCandless’s TED talk , he explains that the beauty of data visualization is “that we can see the patterns and connections that matter and design that information so it makes more sense, it tells a story or allows us to focus only on the information that’s important.”

Don’t get bogged down in mapping out every single data point you uncover during your research. The best graphs are simple graphs with takeaways that are quick to spot.

4. Room for conversation

Engaging your audience goes beyond simply presenting great content. It’s about fostering a connection with them. It’s not enough to ask “any questions?” at the end of your presentation. You need to create space for everyone to absorb and interact with their newfound knowledge.

Create space throughout your presentation to seek feedback on crucial concepts or areas of concern. Tailored questions create engaged audiences.

Expert advice for delivering your next social media presentation

If you’re looking for presentation advice, who better to turn to than a salesperson? That’s why we went to John Barrows, CEO of JB Sales for his guidance on presenting. Barrows provides professional sales training to companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn and Amazon, plus he has over 25 years worth of presentation experience.

We asked him for his expert advice on giving exceptional presentations. Here’s what he had to say.

Know the ins and outs of your business priorities

A great presentation is all about delivering value. You need to draw distinct lines between the content and its business value . Otherwise, you risk losing your audience’s attention right from the start.

“We have seconds to get people’s attention these days,” says Barrows. “A person’s most valuable asset is their time.”

You can give more engaging presentations simply by staying up to date on company goals and priorities. Get to know what’s top of mind for senior leaders and other stakeholders so you can tailor your presentation content accordingly.

On sales calls, Barrows does this by asking each individual attendee what they’d like to get out of the meeting. You can mimic this approach by setting up regular 1:1’s with team members to stay up to date on their priorities.

Practice, practice, practice

According to Barrows, practice can and will make perfect. “Public speaking is one of the biggest fears that most people have, but a lot of it comes down to confidence and preparation. The more prepared you are, the more confident you’ll be in your presentation.”

Barrows refers to confidence and preparation as the art and science of giving a good presentation. The art can be seen in skilled delivery and a snazzy deck, but it’s preparation that keeps everything on track. “If you come in unprepared to a meeting and you get one curveball of a question, you tend to fall apart. Preparation gives you the confidence you need to adjust on the fly.”

Watch your playback footage

It may make you cringe, but the best way to improve your presentation skills is to record yourself and watch it back.

Barrows figured this out after taking a presentation skills course, but not through instructor feedback. It was watching himself back on video that showed him everything he wanted to fix. Common public speaking issues—like overusing filler words and standing with closed body language—are easy to spot on tape.

The good news is, in increasingly distributed workforces, you don’t have to set up a camera during your Monday morning stand up to get footage of yourself speaking in front of an audience. You can just watch the Zoom recording.

Remember you’re a person speaking to people

This is especially important to keep in mind when talking to business leadership. You may look around and see a group of senior executives but at the end of the day, it’s really just another person.

“When I was first starting out in sales, I would get nervous presenting in front of CEOs and people who I perceived to be smarter or more important than I was,” says Barrows. “Presenting can cause imposter syndrome. But, if you take a minute to connect with your audience, you’ll see they’re not that intimidating.”

We can all agree “picture your audience naked” is universally bad advice. Instead, picture your audience as your friend’s dad or a neighbor. Thinking of people as who they are in their daily lives can be a powerful way to fend off nerves.

3 social media presentation templates to build off of

It happens all the time: You set aside 30 minutes for deck creation and an hour later, you’re still trying to figure out the layout of your third slide. A good presentation deck takes time, but that’s time you could be using to practice.

Instead of stressing over your design chops, try one of these pre-built social media marketing presentation templates. Update them to match your brand guidelines, fill in your information and you’re all set to present.  

Social strategy workshop template

Download the 2023 Sprout Social Index™ Report for a customizable deck template that will help you align stakeholders around key opportunities for your social strategy. Use it to lead conversations around how your business can maximize the utility of:

• Emerging technologies, like AI and automation
• Changing consumer engagement preferences and patterns
• Team structures and collaboration norms
• Revenue impact from social

Social media strategy pitch template

  This leadership presentation deck will help you pitch a compelling vision for your next campaign, initiative or annual strategy. Update it with historical performance insights to bridge the gap between raw data and direct business value.

Social insights analysis template

Your social insights can’t do anything for your business if they live and die within your marketing team. This social insights analysis deck template will help you synthesize findings from social media listening to provide key stakeholders with actionable insights to inform work across the org.

Your next social media presentation will be your best one yet

  It’s perfectly normal to feel nervous before speaking in front of a group; most people do. Some of the world’s best public speakers get the same increased heart rate and sweaty palms as the rest of us. Thankfully, now you have everything you need to give great presentations despite those nerves.

Go prep for your next presentation, and use insights from the 2023 Sprout Social Index™ Report to infuse even more value into your work. With it, you’ll get a presentation-ready insights deck that you can tailor to further establish your expertise.

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• Social Media Presentation 101: How to Properly Pitch Your Strategy to Your Clients

In 2024, social media marketing has become an essential part of modern business. If you’ve ever wondered why that is, take a look at these statistics:

• In 2021, over 4.26 billion people used social media worldwide—a number projected to increase to almost six billion by 2027.
• 78% of consumers say they’re willing to buy from a company after having a positive experience with them on social media.
• 91% of executives plan to increase social media marketing budgets in the next three years.

Free to use image sourced from Unsplash

These are just a few of the reasons why all kinds of businesses, from car dealerships to sellers of online communication technologies, are keen to invest in social media marketing. While the demand for services is growing, however, the industry is also becoming fiercely competitive.

Persuading your prospective client that you know how to build a high-converting social media marketing funnel or organize their social media calendar isn’t enough; if you want to stand out among your competitors, you need to convince them you can help to achieve their specific goals.

A strategic social media presentation is where you can showcase your skills and tell your client what value you can deliver for their business. Are you looking for tips on how to pitch to a prospect ? Then read this brief guide to find out what makes the best possible presentation!

In-depth research

Preparation is key to delivering high-quality work. Make sure you base your presentation on thorough research. Learn as much as you can about your client, from their brand to their industry, products, customers, and competitors.

Gathering information about your prospect can also protect you against a potentially bad client , as you may be able to spot certain red flags at this stage.

This could involve:

Getting to know your client

Learning as much as you can about your client will enable you to build a tailor-made strategy for them. You can research their website , social media profiles, product catalogs, and customer reviews. Find out about their brand, industry, and business, as well as their values, objectives , needs, and problems.

It’s helpful to establish who is in charge of marketing in the company, who the members of the marketing team are, and what their budget is. Equipped with this knowledge, you’ll be able to optimize your strategy and the process of implementation. For example, you might suggest your client explores the application of integrations to streamline their approach.

Finding out about their audience

Developing a successful strategy for a business requires knowing its customers and social media audience. At the very least, it’s useful to understand which platforms they’re present on, the groups and demographics they appeal to, and who they wish to attract. It may also be worth your while to test and track ad creative elements they currently have on their social channels to see how these are performing.

Knowing these things will allow you to propose well-informed solutions and strategies. For example, you can help your client find ways to expand their social media reach or attract a specific demographic such as GenZ.

Researching their competitors

A successful social media marketing strategy will make your client stand out. To achieve this, you need to know about their competitors’ social media presences and strategies, as well as the products or services they offer. Only then can you design a campaign that will differentiate your client and emphasize their advantages.

For example, if your client is a new online communications technology provider, check out industry rankings and comparison sites to find out what other competitors to eVoice have to offer, and then design your strategy around the things that make your client special. Perhaps they can offer their customers a useful feature free of charge? If so, this might become the central theme of your campaign.

A personalized approach, trust, and good communication

The information you gather at the research stage will help you develop a strategy based on a personalized approach . Your presentation should reflect this. Use it to persuade your client that you’re there to help them solve their problems and achieve their goals and have the experience and resources to do it.

To do this:

Focus on the client

Image sourced from semrush.com

A 2019 Semrush study showed personalization is the most important factor determining the success of a sales agency pitch and matters more than the pricing strategy, value proposition, or relevant stats and benchmarks. So, it’s definitely a good idea to tailor your presentation to your specific client! Let them know you’re aware of their needs, challenges, and preferences. It’s also useful to specify what you’ll need from them to make your strategy work.

Back your plan up with examples and case studies from your past work that your prospect can relate to. Coming back to our previous example, a new online telecommunications technology provider may be keen to learn what you achieved for a virtual call center solutions business previously, but less interested in your campaigns for a fashion brand.

Establish your credibility

In addition to showcasing your experience and expertise and demonstrating your track record of successful campaigns, you can establish credibility by telling clients more about yourself and how you work. A Stanford study showed people tend to remember stories rather than facts and figures.

Telling a prospective client about your professional journey or how you started your agency can leave a lasting impression on them. Introducing your team and their respective roles or describing the business process (i.e. how you work with your clients) can be helpful too.

Foster good communication

Be open to answering your client’s questions after the presentation and leave your contact details so they can reach you with any queries at a later stage (letting them call you on a virtual number free of charge may encourage them to get in touch).

It’s good practice to send a “thank you” email after the presentation in which you also ask for feedback.

Planning, design, and delivery

There’s little need to emphasize the importance of good planning, attractive design, and professional delivery in business presentations.

You’re probably already familiar with the principles of designing and delivering a strong presentation, and there are plenty of resources available to consult for inspiration and guidance. Nonetheless, below you’ll find a brief recap of the basics to refresh your memory.

Structure your information

A good presentation must be well structured and focused on the main objectives. Include all the relevant information and present it in a logical order, so your audience leaves the room having a clear idea of what you wanted to say. Make the content informative but not overloaded with facts and figures.

There are various approaches to structuring your presentation. One helpful piece of advice is to follow the 10/20/30 presentation rule , which states presentations should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and have a font no smaller than 30 points. You may want to modify this model or adopt a different one that suits your purposes better.

Make it visually attractive

American psychologist Jerome Bruner popularized the theory that people only remember 10 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they read, and about 80 percent of what they see and do. This means the visual side of your presentation is really important. Visualizing information, such as numerical data and stats, can help your audience understand and remember the content.

Visual elements can also make your presentation more aesthetically pleasing. After all, you are showcasing your social media marketing skills! Looking at your presentation, your client should believe you can turn any content (be it a sample bookkeeping business proposal or a perfume) into something exciting.

Explore online resources

Remember, there are tools and resources available to help you achieve the best results with the presentation design and visual elements. You can reach for  free PowerPoint templates and focus on the content, while having the visuals taken care of by professionals. These can be accessed online from a variety of providers.

If you prefer to develop the presentation yourself but would like some guidance on how to maximize its visual appeal, you can look for advice on industry-related websites. There, you’ll find articles on the latest trends in slide design, valuable PowerPoint add-ins, and a lot more.

Showcase your skills like a pro

As you’re preparing a social media presentation, you will need to give your client a preview of how you can transform their social media profiles . Using screenshots of social media test pages is a solution that many agencies still implement, though it appears less professional and less attractive than some of the innovative options available today.

Instead, you can turn to dedicated tools which will enable you to create, edit, and approve social media content. With it, you can give your prospect the most accurate idea of what you can deliver for them. Moreover, it allows you to modify posts as and when needed. The tool will help you plan and schedule a social media campaign using predefined time slots.

Ensure a smooth delivery

Delivery is both about your presenting skills and the format of your presentation. In addition to employing top-level public speaking to engage your audience, you need to choose the best presentation environment and file type.

A good way to catch the audience’s attention early on is to tell a story or quote astonishing statistics. Then, keeping them engaged depends as much on your speaking skills as on attractive visuals.

Remember that choosing your presentation environment and format is an important decision—will you use PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides? Will you rely on templates or prepare the presentation yourself?

Finally, make sure the format you chose will be compatible with the equipment you’ll be using during the presentation and that everything is working smoothly.

Virtual presentations? You’ve got it covered!

Following the expansion of remote working we saw in recent years, virtual presentations have become ubiquitous. Some organizations have adopted them as the delivery method of choice. So, it’s definitely good to have a good grasp of the art of preparing and delivering presentations remotely.

When there is no direct face-to-face interaction between the presenter and the audience, the task of captivating and sustaining the listeners’ attention falls largely on the material. This makes visual and technical aspects of a virtual presentation even more crucial. While presenting remotely may feel less stressful than doing it in person, it also requires adjusting your technique.

Experts point out that a good virtual presentation responds to the challenges of the virtual environment, such as multiple distractions, the distance between the speaker and the audience, and the risk of technical errors. You can largely mitigate them with the right solutions and approach.

Use dynamic elements

So, attractive, eye-catching visuals become more important than ever. It’s a good idea to include dynamic elements, such as animations and videos, though you need to remember not to overload the audience. When it comes to text, slides should ideally contain one or two points expressed in short and punchy sentences. Using an AI slide maker will automate design elements and suggest visually appealing layouts, ensuring that your slides are concise and visually engaging.

Complex ideas and data can be conveyed in infographics and visualizations, while the presentation itself should be well structured and follow a logical plan. You can experiment with different presentation software, check out alternatives to PowerPoint, and make your tools more powerful by reaching for interesting add-ins.

Free to use image sourced from Pexels

Interact with your audience

The listeners’ attention can also be captivated with creative ideas and interactive elements, such as polls and quizzes. Though you don’t see them face to face, you can still maintain eye contact using a webcam, and emphasize some points with gestures. An interactive presentation as it will be more engaging and be more memorable to your audience in the long-term.

You may not be able to eliminate technical issues on the viewers’ side, however, you should ensure a perfectly smooth delivery on your end. Test your equipment and rehearse the presentation to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Sending a copy of your presentation to your audience after the event will give those who may have experienced technical issues to familiarize themselves with it and create an opportunity for a follow-up interaction.

Time to get started

This brief guide should have given you a general idea of what makes a good social media strategy presentation and how to prepare one. Now, you can look for more material and explore each point in-depth, or you can start working on your presentation straight away and consult additional sources as you go along.

Whichever path you take, remember to do your research, plan your slides well, make them visually pleasing, take care of technicalities and—above all—focus on your client and social media productivity . If you fail to address their needs, you won’t be successful, no matter how visually appealing or technically advanced your presentation may be. Good luck!

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The Importance of Social Media

Dec 19, 2019

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The Importance of Social Media. Some facts and statistics:. Nearly 1 out of every 5 minutes online is spent on social media Facebook reached 1.11 billion users in May 2013 Facebook’s largest growing demographic is 55 to 64 year olds

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Some facts and statistics: • Nearly 1 out of every 5 minutes online is spent on social media • Facebook reached 1.11 billion users in May 2013 • Facebook’s largest growing demographic is 55 to 64 year olds • In one year, 2011 – 2012, social media usage increased by 21%

Why should I care about social media?

Reason 1 • Usage is increasing • Access anytime and anywhere Social media is taking over

Reason 2 • Relationships are important • Community is everything Building lasting relationships

Reason 3 • Used by millions of people • Keywords will help people find you Google likes social media

Reason 4 • FREE! • Only costs are time and resources It’s free!

Reason 5 • Traditional marketing not like it once was • Ability to be notified quickly Social media is more effective than traditional marketing

Getting Started

Facebook & Twitter Quick fact: If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest country in the world.

Three More Social Networks of Note • Pinterest: A virtual bulletin board that allows users to find and curate images and videos. • YouTube: A video social network where billions of people go to discover, watch, learn, and share originally-created videos. • Google+: This social network tries to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life with hangouts, circles, etc. It allows you to segment your contacts and share what you want with the people you want. 

What's Facebook? • Who's on it?One billion people! And most likely many of your members and prospective members • What do they do there? People share their experiences, as well interesting things about other people/organizations

Why Facebook? • People are doing more than connecting with friends. They are connecting with businesses and nonprofits and sharing the news, deals, and other content

Facebook Basics So how do you get “on” Facebook? • Create a personal Profile • Create a business Page • Join a Group/Create a Cause

Facebook Basics So how do you get “on” Facebook? Step 1: Visit the Facebook website Step 2: Enter your information

Facebook Basics Step 3: Connect with friends Step 4: Enter your information

Facebook Basics You’re finished! Step 5: Choose a profile photo

Facebook Page Basics Setting up your club’s Page • Create a personal Profile (required) • Create a club Page • Join a Group/Create a Cause Step 1: Choose a page type - Organization

Facebook Page Basics Step 2: Choose a page type - Organization Step 3: Choose a page type - Organization

Facebook Basics Step 4: Customize your Page Step 5: Change your “About” info

Facebook Page Basics Step 6: Choose a web address Step 7: Turn off advertising, for now

Facebook Page Basics Step 8: Add a cover photo Step 9: Change your “About” info

Facebook Page Basics Hooray – you’re finished!

Start Sharing Your News!

Start Sharing Your News! And, watch it spread!

Grow Your Community

Additional Features New “Likes” – Messages – Notifications Settings Newsfeed Status Analytics Messages

Have Fun! • Facebook … • Can’t be broken – explore the features of this vehicle and become familiar with how you want to use it! • Ever-evolving, to offer more options … learn what you can now, so future changes are easier to manage.

What's Twitter? • Who's on it? Twitter enables all types of people to share and consume information they find interesting • What do they do there? Twitter users post news, articles, promotions, and jokes all in 140 character chunks. By “following” someone on Twitter you can see all of their posts and easily share them with the people who “follow” you

Why Twitter? • Why you should care: Twitter gives your club a voice and is a fast and easy way to share messages and get feedback from your members, and prospects in real time.

Twitter Basics Step 1: Visit the Twitter website Step 2: Enter your information

Twitter Basics Step 3: Visit the Twitter website You’re finished!

Twitter Basics Customize your profile: Choose a profile picture and write a short bio, or simply start tweeting!

Twitter Basics Sending tweets:

Sending your message What should you tweet about? Your club can tweet about information related to their field, events, answer questions, links to blog posts or club newsletters, and how-to posts.

Twitter Basics How often should you tweet? • Depends on: • Your time • Your industry • Your desired return • Consistency matters!

Who do I follow? Following people • Ways to search: • Use the advanced search • Who to Follow box • A few reasons: • Get feedback • Grow your network • Discover interesting, shareable content

Who do I follow? • Examples: • Newspapers • Television stations • Radio stations • Government offices • Civic organizations • Other non-profits • Boy/Girl Scouts

What is a webinar? • A webinar is a web-based conference that uses the Internet to connect the individual hosting the webinar to the audience

How do they work? • Host sends out invitations  • Host prepares presentation and material for the meeting • At start time, participants can join via phone and web  • Traditionally host will share with participants

How do I attend? • Depending on which service you or the host uses, you may need to download an application to access the webinar • Audience members are often provided with a custom link or even a password in order to get in

Example Presentation Presenter Chat Resources Attendees

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Former undercover officer advises Cheshire parents on online safety for kids

C HESHIRE, Conn. (WTNH) — Concerned parents gathered to hear from Scott Driscoll, a former undercover police officer with 34 years of experience in law enforcement, specializing in catching cyber predators.

Driscoll delivered a presentation at Cheshire High School, focusing on the importance of keeping children safe online.

He emphasized that rather than completely restricting internet access or confiscating phones, parents should actively monitor their children’s online activities and set reasonable time limits for social media use.

“We know our children better than anyone. If all of a sudden your child is being secretive that’s a warning sign,” said Driscoll. “If you decide they need a break and it’s not the normal ‘can i have my phone back’ and it’s a heated conversation, then maybe there’s a reason why they refuse to give it up.”

Parents said they found the information useful, particularly regarding the establishment of ground rules for social media usage.

Concerns about basic security, identity theft, and online predators were prevalent among attendees, underscoring the need for proactive measures to safeguard children online.

Driscoll also advised parents to educate their children about the importance of never sharing personal information online and to emphasize the importance of keeping passwords private.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.