Social media is now such an intrinsic part of our daily lives, it’s sometimes hard to imagine a time before its existence. So for all of our younger followers out there, as well as those who are a little long in the tooth, here’s 10 (of many) events that have helped shaped social networking into what it is now…
1. Email Send-sation
Emailing today is such an integral part of how business is conducted; it’s hard to believe the first email was only sent back on 1971. What was sent exactly, nobody really knows, but it was a computer engineer by the name of Ray Tomlinson who has been credited with the achievement and it was he who decided to use an @ symbol to separate names from domains.
2. Blogging Begins
Like all techy inventions, blogging started with several precursors and the term itself wasn’t actually coined until the late 1990’s. Blogging now plays a central role in the digital marketing landscape but it’s only really within the last 5-10 years that the industry has cottoned on to their importance and value to customers.
3. Friendster… Come Again?
Back in the day, this platform was a social media giant but we’re banking that not everyone is familiar with the name. Founded in 2002, it was the first social networking site to really exist, but for various reasons it was unable to sustain it’s early success.
4. Myspace – Hello Old Friend
Now you will probable be a lot more familiar with Myspace. This was launched in 2003 and just 1 year later had over 1 million unique visors to the site, which at the time was mightily impressive. It has a strong music emphasis and many artists attribute their success to being discovered on this social networking service.
5. Facebook Frenzy
This year Facebook surpassed over 1.23 billion active monthly users and you don’t need us to tell the significance this platform has had on the way we communicate and live our lives. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg is 30 years old and has a net worth of £10 billion. Not bad going eh?
6. The Launch Into Twittersphere
Who knew that posting messages or ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters would provide to be so popular? The micro-blogging service was created in 2006 but only began receiving mainstream success after the culture of celebrity began getting on board. Ashton Kutcher, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry were early Twitterati adopters.
7. YouTube And Viral Videos
Unlike the 4 social media networking platforms we’ve previously mentioned, YouTube is based around only one thing, video content. Users can not only watch but also upload videos to the site, which has the potential to be viewed millions and millions of times.
8. Social Media Mobile
Getting all these services to your mobile device has been revolutionary for the online world. Users can now interact and have real time access from their smart phones in the form of apps. As a result, native mobile social networks have been created such as Foursquare and Instagram, which are proving very popular.
Advertising via social media platforms is something that did not exist just 10 years ago and now it is a multi-billion pound industry. Social advertisements offer opportunities to build awareness, target all kinds of different consumers, as well as monitor behavioral data.
10. Google Analytics
Like social media advertising, this final one is particular relevant for businesses. Google Analytics makes it possible for you to track and measure how well your websites are performing. Whether you want to boost sales, find more visitors or improve your mobile app, this tool can provide the insights you need to improve your business.
