Internet "Community"

This week’s topic of “Community” led me to rethink the ways that I use social networks. I’ve always been one to use a social network as an extension of my real life networks. My “friends” online are people that I know and spend time with offline. One of the biggest changes that I see is the use of social media more frequently in the business world. While my job would not benefit from the use of advertising or building an online network, I have several friends and acquaintances that are using websites like Facebook to make connections and bring in new business. I came across this video from Mike Locke, a web consultant, who describes the importance of maintaining the real business websites rather than relying on social networking to grow a business. He says that when potential customers or contacts are looking at a business, they are more likely to search for the company’s website than to look at a Facebook profile or Twitter account. I think this brings up a good point about social networking—it doesn’t work the best for all situations.

Our assignment to keep a diary of time spent on social networking sites pretty much confirmed what I already knew: I spend a lot of time online. I thought it would be interesting to compare my social media use to others, so I found a couple of articles that describe who is using social media and which sites have the most time spent on them (Spoiler Alert: Facebook wins!). Here are the links:

Facebook Passes Google in "Time Spent," What Does It Mean?

The Social Habit: Who Uses Social Media And How?