Power of Social Media

Yesterday, I was looking at options to treat my wife who got a new job. Her choice was obvious - some personal time and a great dinner at a new restaurant. The second part almost got me in to trouble if it wasn't for the different social media vehicles I use. More importantly Buzz and Facebook. I logged in to my network of 500+ friends and replied to the popular 'What's on your mind?' question. In less than 5 minutes I made up my mind.

All through the dinner, I could not stop wondering about the power of social media even in a country like India (infrastructure still cribs for attention and Internet penetration low compared to other developing nations). True that the number of twitter users is increasing by second and active users of Facebook has grown manifold, but this definitely impressed me, even more so because of my own profession (online marketing consultant). I got all psyched up to explore if the restaurant had a presence on social media.

Look at the endless possibilities, they can share real-time information on availability of tables, new additions to the menu, and of course the comments that people are keying in. Interestingly, when I tried to look up on the restaurant on different social media vehicles, I was disappointed to see their presence missing. 

Someone just won a new customer (thankfully the food was good as well) because of social media and a) he is unaware of it and b) he doesn't know the loss that this unawareness is causing. I got up, met the guy and shared my thoughts emphasizing the importance of his presence on some, if not all, social media vehicles. He jumped at the thought and set some time next week to further discuss this.

Thankfully, with all the energy and commotion in my brain, I still managed to put up a good act of being completely involved in all the gossip that my wife shared over a delicious dinner.