LIFE WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITESBy: Khawaja Naveed Haider

Technology is really changing day by day. It doesn’t only bring ease to your life but it is also trying to develop your another personality which is virtual personality. We call it the personality of the one on the internet. People are not social in their actual life but they are more social on the internet. Social networking site is the online place where people come to make their profile based on their personalities and make friends by adding new and existing friends in their lives. I won’t be wrong if I say that these social networking sites really changed our personalities in good and bad ways and they are very popular among almost every age group. But why not think positive? The famous social networking websites are Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter etc…

To create the base of my topic, I would like to quote the facts of Americans using social networking websites.

● 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 55% have used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.

● 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible to all internet users.

● 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day.

● 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys, and 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older boys have done so. (Lenhart, Internet et al. 2007)

The purpose of using the social networking websites can be different for each one of us. May be you use social networking website for fun and the other one is using it for networking. May be somebody say waste of time about me and probably mostly do think the same.

The above story is about the USA. Now what is happening in our country is kind of same as USA. The trend is changing. Number of people is increasing day by day who use internet. We can easily observe that how the many companies of internet have introduced the new internet packages in which mobile companies are also included. The TV commercials of mobile internet are also created on the basis of social networking websites. Our young generation is totally crazy about it. There are several entertainment features that these social networking sites have for its users. A good example for this is Facebook.com. It offers picture, status, videos and notes sharing with your friends who keeps you updated all the time. But at the same time, it is also

the good source of information sharing. People share what they like. Information can spread really fast with these social networking sites. Not only young but people of old age are also the part of these social networking websites. If you go for advance search, you will find many people who are married and their children are also using these sites. It is all about the way of thinking and attitude towards the technology. You can find Bill Gates, Sania Mirza, Ali Zafar, Barack Obama and many other famous celebrities who are in touch with their fans on the twitter and Facebook. (Gate 2009)

It doesn’t helpful for teens only but many organizations are using it for their business and customer relationship management. It can be amazing for you but it is true. It will be very helpful for people who are in a community or in an organization. With more than 68 million active users of Facebook.com, organizations are looking for to tap into the relationship development potential. In April 2006, Facebook opened its registration process to organizations, and more than 4000 organizations joined within 2 weeks. Public relations-oriented blogs and trade publications have promoted these sites as relationship building gear. Social networking makes their CRM process easier as it is very hard to tackle and handle hundreds of customers and potential customers. It can be done with a single click and they are done with their work. There are many Pakistani companies who are implementing the same thing like Stoneage, Levi’s Pakistan, HSY, Maria B and many others. (Waters, Burnett et al. 2009)

Many people think that how these sites are going to earn money even we don’t pay them anything for making our account. The answer for this question is really simple. These websites offer the platform to other websites to add their applications. Then these social networking websites charge for them. These social networking websites also offer the virtual money which is needed to play online games. One more amazing thing about it is that whatever you’re surfings on the internet or you have account on other social networking website; you can connect your website with other social networking website. It helps every sector of life to update their fans. Like you can connect your twitter account with Facebook and MySpace. Now every time you update your status on twitter, it will automatically update your other accounts too. In this way, businesses can reach to more customers and entertainers can reach to more fans. (Rutledge 2008)

Thus it helps you in every way. Our modern generation has introduced us many changes and impacts through technology. These are what build up our everyday lives. It can be good or bad in some ways, but we can never deny that their changes have really been a part of our society. Technology enables us to have another personality.

References:

● Gate, J. (2009). "The Impact of Social Networking Sites to People." eZinearticles.

● Lenhart, A., P. Internet, et al. (2007). Social networking websites and teens: An overview, Pew/Internet.

● Rutledge, P. (2008). The truth about profiting from social networking, Que Pub.

● Waters, R., E. Burnett, et al. (2009). "Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook." Public Relations Review 35(2): 102-106.