.png)
The Underestimated Power of Social Media
For years, social media was seen as a waste of time, and there are companies that still see it that way. The stereotype is of teenagers mindlessly following one another on Twitter or watching stupid videos on YouTube. Many companies simply don't see the need for it. There might actually be people who still think it's just a trend that will eventually die off. According to the 5 Worst Stereotypes about Social Media Managers, people think that those who work with social media spend their time "playing" and that they have "no pressure" within their jobs.
I'm here to tell you that social media is a lot more prevalent and powerful than people realize. I was recently shown this by an article posted by a fellow student for discussion. This article, posted in July 2016 by Bloomberg magazine, describes how social media played a major role in defeating the recent Turkish coup d'etat. The rogue generals who tried to stage their coup only thought about traditional media when planning how to take over. In addition to closing key transportation routes, and trying to secure parliament and presidential offices and to kidnap high-ranking officials, they took over state and private television channels. They used these traditional media channels to broadcast their message, deny access to the news so they could control the information going through, and prematurely announce their victory.
Fortunately, just when it seemed like they were succeeding, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his mobile phone to record a message urging citizens to stand up to the rebel military faction. This video spread throughout social media and grew to include images of people actually standing in front of and on top of tanks. Foreign political leaders and even domestic political opponents of the president joined in his social media campaign. Ordinary Turkish citizens actually went out and confronted the rebel troops and their tanks! The rebels soon surrendered, and the coup was defeated.
This is an example of how powerful social media can be, but it's not the only major example. Social media has amazed us before. After Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, supporters took to Twitter to raise funds and coordinate relief efforts. The same was done through Facebook and Twitter for Hurricane Sandy the year before.
This shows that social media can actually be used for something important and productive. You might think it was foolish of the Turkish generals not to consider social media in this day and age, but how many people would actually consider it when planning anything? There's so much untapped potential in social media, and I think we've only caught a glimpse of it.