The Power of Social Media
How Social Media Can Build Community and Be Harnessed for Good
The word community gets used a lot. It’s everywhere. Community centers, faith communities, community building, and a million other iterations of the word dull the senses and lessen the impact of how significant community is. Community is not just a word for convenient labeling. Community is the living, breathing, beating heart of what it means to be in communion—or relationship—with each other. Building and expanding individual relationships into a growing circle of larger communities is a biological imperative in our species. We survived millions of years of evolution because we formed communities. There was safety in numbers, shared strength and wisdom, comfort in difficult times, and the advancement of knowledge and science, all because we formed and continue to create communities.
We form many types of communities, often because of shared interests or goals. We live in communities and, at a macro level, share this planet in a community of nations. For most of human existence, communication kept pace with the progress of history. We shared stories around the campfire, at communal tables and gatherings, then by traveling bards and storytellers, and as history progressed—with the written word. For many thousands of years, this served us well. The speed of communication allowed time to process and sit with new information. There was time to think deeply, ponder and question new ideas, and contribute with care to the growing body of human knowledge.
Almost 200 years ago—the method that had worked so well—was flipped on its head. First came the telegraph and the radio, then television, and a few decades later—the rise of the internet made instant communication at the push of a button possible. Now, anyone can reach a global audience through a bevy of social media platforms. While radio and television rapidly expanded the speed at which we communicated, nothing compares to the transformative power of social media. Interestingly, social media is also creating new types of communities, a phenomenon not seen with other communication mediums.
The ability to rapidly find people who think like you, admire the same things as you, and want the same things in the world is a wholesale change in how we form communities, receive information, and interact with the world because of that information. In the relatively short time social media has existed, we are still finding our sea legs. With each passing year, new trends emerge and fade, language constantly evolves, apps rise and fall like tides, and we are surfing the wave of progress without a tether.
All of this presents real dangers and real opportunities. We’ve seen the widespread use of misinformation and disinformation, the “canceling” of individuals, the boycotting of companies, teams, and institutions, the ability to hold government officials accountable, and a surge of grassroots activism for innumerable causes. This election season will be shaped like no other through the power of social media. A simple Google search will reveal dozens and dozens of stories about political campaigns trying to use social media in innovative ways to persuade voters. Former president Donald Trump used social media as the foundation of his two previous presidential campaigns, and Vice President Kamala Harris’ place at the top of the Democratic ticket has unleashed a torrent of community-led activism and record-shattering fundraising driven through the power of social media.
The lesson here is clear: social media has the power to build and foster community, inspire action, and create lasting change in ways we have never seen before. Those who know how to harness this power and leverage social media for good have the potential to influence the future in a way never before seen in history.
To learn more about Connection Point and how we can help you develop community-building initiatives and create brand-defining storytelling moments, please visit: teamcp.co/services
