Welcome to my first blog post!  After a week of procrastinating I have finally started,  thanks to Breda Stackpool’s PerfecPlan4Life’s encouraging tweet: “Good morning, good morning, good morning! Prioritise 3 tasks today to get the week off to a great start!”

So what is Social Media? This is a question that I get asked pretty often as the question usually refers to my business I briefly explain that it involves using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flikr and other media resources to help market a business.

However it is really much more than that!  For me social media is about the PEOPLE.  People use social media to help others and themselves.  We can keep in touch with friends and family but we can also choose to be informed and follow news on a whole range of activities, products, interests, causes and community events.

Social Media also gives everyone a voice, irrespective of colour, creed, financial background, age or nationality.  Anyone who is enthusiastic about something can start a simple blog, a Facebook page or Twitter account and connect with like-minded people.  New advances are making computer applications easier to use for people with disabilities, mobility issues and even for those people who profess to not knowing “the first thing about computers”.

We are generally social beings and like to feel connected; with friends and family, with our hometowns or local clubs and businesses.  This connection gives us a sense of place or belonging. As connected beings we can work together to inform and share, sometimes useless amusing information and other times, important and pressing concerns.  Social Media encourages truth and authenticity, false claims are quickly highlighted and shared but so too are the good news stories.

With the growing numbers of people signing up to Social Media sites daily it is an invaluable tool for businesses, organisations, groups and public figures to help share their good stories.  Many people start using social medai but don’t follow through. Don’t use it because everyone else is doing it but do it if it makes sense for you to use it as part of your overall marketing plan.

I’d like to give a big shout out to Niall Doherty for is help in finalling get it all up and running with wordpress!