Gone are the days of one-way communication, where organisations held the ultimate control over what information they released to the mass market.
Say hello to Web 2.0.
A world where publics and organisations now exist on the same level, with consumers having gained a lot more control, greater access to information, and a lot more say in what they choose to read.
In short, welcome to the world of Social Media.
-Each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared
-Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users a day
-YouTube generates 92 billion page views per month
-People upload 3,000 images to Flickr every minute
Through social media use, a two-way communication system has evolved. People are taking it upon themselves to communicate and share information with others, resulting in a much faster transmission of information around the globe.
In such a fast paced society, the question is, how are organisations keeping up?
The key is being aware and up to date, honest and open, and responsive to what’s happening, without it being in their control.
“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it”.Erik qualman
My question to you, are organisations making the most of this opportunity? Or is widespread social media use getting the better of them?
Digital Marketing 
Good points. I wrote a similar article on this idea here: http://thesocialdeviant.com/2012/08/14/the-power-of-the-social-consumer/. Yes there are significant advantages of leveraging the networks of social media for business, but it now becomes a question of how they manage increased consumer power. Before it would be easy to cover up a bad review, now if someone gets hold of it and shares it to their networks it could be potentially detrimental to a business.
I agree Sammy, I just wrote a blog (https://kristinolds.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/is-it-really-worth-it/), discussing how company’s should handle a messy social media situation. It’s definitely been interesting (and educational) to see how different company’s have got it right, and others have got it oh so wrong.
Consumers really do have a lot more control than they used to. Marketers and brands are now having to defend themselves against customers and Facebook users, for example, in order to sustain a positive brand image. So your points are well made in this blog. I have written one about the rising control of consumers, and the decrease of the 9 to 5 job for companies due to social media.
http://emarketingsocial.wordpress.com/
Thanks for your comments guys! Really appreciate it. It’s good to see we’re all on the same page. Will definitely check out your blogs to get further insight into the issue.