By Aiman Raza

Social media is a two-way communication that gives us the ability to communicate. Social media popular websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram etc. there are now hundreds of social networks are available on the internet.

In my opinion it has had a positive impact.  Social media has definitely made us closer to other parts of the world – as someone who used to do the worldwide business from America, it easy for them to interact with their customers worldwide through social media.

A relatively new Social Media platform, Instagram, now has more than 90 million active users. Instagram is not as crowded as other Social Media platforms. Instagram can be used for both local and global social media campaigns.

Various brands have done very creative work on Instagram.  Ford Motor Company used Instagram for its recent Fiesta campaign, and ran a weekly photo challenge on Instagram, where its members had to upload photos with specific ‘Ford type’ hash tags.

Ford’s Instagram activity was distributed to other social media platforms, where their community was kept up to date with the photo competition. This was an extremely innovative and successful campaign.

The results were amazing: 16,000 photos submitted. The word spread fast, and many people become aware of the ‘New Fiesta’.

In a nutshell, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Companies like Ford are providing a proof of concept that Social Media works well. It doesn’t mean I don’t see the back side of the coin. I do know the cons along with the pros.

Downside of the social media is that the user shares too much information which may pose threats to them. Even with the tight security settings your personal information may leak on the social sites. Downloading your videos or pictures and copying your status is an easy task and can be done within few clicks.

(The writer Aiman Raza is a Marketing Consultant and Research Analyst)