2009 And Social Media

Social Media – it was a word that popped up in the mainstream and blew everyone away by storm. Well, at least those who were not as computer savvy nor marketing savvy.

We learned Social Media and Social Networking were not the same, where social media was a technique to market yourself or your company a social networking were the sites you could exercise your marketing strategies. Of course, there are still people who get those two words mixed up a lot.

This past year, we saw social network giants clamber to be the top, making unique features to draw more users. In fact, there are probably more users that jumped on the bandwagon of social networking versus blogging. In fact, users found more ways to flex their social media muscles on the social networks to attract people to their blogs. Some users found web celebrity status this year, overpowering teeny bopper half clad girls on MySpace who just wanted you to leave a comment while debasing themselves.

We saw governments crack down on Twitter usage, even countries banning their own people from telling the horrible truth about them to the world.

We even saw celebrities and normal everyday people gets sued or even fired or literally roasted online for their Twitter usage.

It has been quite the year for Social Media. Can it get better? Yes. But it could get worse as well. In 2009, spammers crawled out from their holes and found they could play with the social networking masses.

What is in store for 2010? Who knows? For myself, of course, I would love to strive to be better than last year. I went to having a Google PR of 1 to a Google PR 4, and on Alexa, I am doing better than 200K. I actually made my goals, AND beat my goals. I even improved my content. I have more than one blog – each focusing on some of my major interests. I opened Blogrity, a social bookmark site for bloggers that is built with WordPress. I started guest posting at other blogs. I educated and influenced people. I believe I am a blog rockstar, but nothing huge…yet. 😉

What have you noticed this past year in social media, and have you met your goals? How did you go about achieving them and did you use social networking to do it?