MA Social Media

One thing I love about social media is that it is, in fact, social.  At first you may thing you’re talking to yourself, posting blogs that go unread and tweets that echo into cyberspace.  But given a little time, networks grow quickly, and you’ll soon find yourself conversing within many communities – groups like classmates, coworkers, family members, or local friends, to name a few.

Thinking about social media in smaller networks like that keeps the expanses of the Internet manageable.  For example, with businesses, it is not about connecting with everyone online, but reaching out to the specific market or audience that can most benefit from your product.  Even for individuals, subscribing to a few local news blogs is a more manageable information flow than subscribing to every global news source available.  Such information consumption can quickly become overwhelming.

Personally, I’ve got TweetDeck and Google Reader organized into different networks by category – real life friends, bloggers, news sources, and social media gurus – but also regionally – Baltimore, my hometown; Syracuse, my college town; and now Birmingham, where I’ll be heading in two weeks to participate in the MA Social Media program.

I’m excited to be joining the Birmingham network, because it seems like the perfect environment for the development of such a program.  When I was in Syracuse, there was naturally an academic community that conversed in social media outlets.  I also joined a group of motivated locals who have a strong Twitter association and meet each other for happy hour each week.  But each of these networks never seemed to intermix.  What I’ve noticed about Birmingham so far – as much as I can observe from across an ocean – is that the academic and business communities seem much more interactive with each other.  Most significantly, I’ve seen that prominent academics reach out to local businesses to offer social media guidance.  People around town – such as the Urban Coffee shop – really seem to grasp the concept of Internet technologies and use it to market themselves well.  Birmingham, more than any other network I’ve been a part of, seems much more like an open, inviting community to join.

I’m hoping that through the MA program, I can learn ways to promote similar network integration and open-mindedness about social media business options. Birmingham is a great example – in a community willing to embrace change, there is often a lot more potential to do good things with the tools at hand.