Growth of Social Media

Growth of social media is driven by human behaviour. The need to express is intrinsic to human nature. Social media has only simulated this human behaviour on digital and created a virtual world to express. Our expression now has many viewers and various degree of friends and friends of friends, their reaction validates our views and opinion. Word of mouth which till now was a one-to-one phenomenon has catapult into a web of multi-dimensional value proposition to many and the beauty is all of these provides pool of information that we call data that can be measured and monitored

To emphasize the importance of social media, I’d like to address two critical components:

 1.    Human Expressions

2.    Word of mouth

 Expressions are natural phenomena for humans, we like to express our views, our opinions, our thoughts, our likes and our dislikes. In-fact our survival is governed by the culture and society we are born in, and it is this very survival instinct that urges the need to express.

 It is our expression that helps us in creating bonds with others, we make friends, build our network, build trust. suggestions and opinions matter to us, we ask for views about matters that are of importance to us, it could vary from buying new products, watch a movie, eateries, holiday destinations, community service etc. 

 When we express – It creates an impression and opinion about us to others. And it is our expression that helps us build a positive impression on others and it earns us social currency - how others perceive us basis our choices

 This human desire to share thoughts, opinions, and experiences makes social media and online social networks so popular. People blog about their preferences, post Facebook status updates about they ate for lunch, and tweet about why the hate the current government.

 Disclosing information about self is intrinsically rewarding and social media has built a scale around it. So as long as this behaviour exists social media will only thrive further with newer style and techniques from see it all to invite only interactions

 *Content of this article is inspired from the book Contagious by Jonah Berger