Introduction

The recent pandemic has proved the essentiality of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in finding better ways to stay connected and develop a better bond with your community. With the rapid improvement of technology over the set period, social media and many other platforms have increased drastically in usage, especially among young students/adults who are socially active and go out a lot. Social media is used by 90% of university students (Siddiqui & Singh,2016). Therefore, an advantage of the convenience and joy of social media is being taken by building a stronger connection with peers/ community and establishing a more fundable bond. It has made it much easier to arrange plans, share photos online, showcase your location, start your own business, get a piece of even further information about starting a business nevertheless, you could build your own social event on Snapchat supported via a community. Many dreadful tasks that used to take days or even months to arrange are done within hours all thanks to social media it has become a vital aspect of life.

With such easy convenience available always, the demand for usage among people aged (13-25) gets higher and higher. Numerous teenagers use their laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones to monitor their friends and family’s Twitter feeds and status updates (Akram and Kumar, 2017). It has become a tradition and one of the few ways you can check up on how well somebody is doing by checking their latest feed or update. There is no need to even get in contact with the person if you can check their status online and what they are getting up to daily. This was crucial when it came down to lockdowns, pandemics and staying at home with little to no physical contact with friends, family or communities.

The only tool for Students during lockdowns is to share feeds, comment on somebody else’s and interact with others

Social media platforms that are commonly used among young adults/ students like Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are very convenient. You can like, share and comment with the person you want to interact with, these methods are all a form of social interaction that doesn’t require any physical meetings. video chats are always of high quality and have great audio. On a personal level, social media allows us to contact friends and family, learn new things, pursue our passions, and be entertained (Akram and Kumar, 2017). Covid 19 has proved the essentiality of these networking sites in order to reconnect communities and interact in a much more established form. During the pandemic, there was no other way to know the strategies people were using to cope with lockdowns and manage their stress unless you went on Facebook feed or Twitter. Within seconds of someone updating their feed, you have been informed and aware of the strategies they use. You can suggest better ways to cope by sharing your thoughts or interacting with somebody else’s using the comment section, that way the community is interacting on a much larger scale rather than in a small group meeting. Twitter and Facebook, for example, play an important role in disaster management by disseminating emergency information to a catastrophe-affected community (Kim & Hastak, 2018). Big institutions are using social media platforms to reach out to more people regarding certain updates. Mickoleit (2014) identified that government institutions are using platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs to communicate with their communities. Social media has become a quick and easy news source for everyone including big businesses and institutions.

People no longer need to rely on the media or television for their daily dose of the news; anything can be found on a social networking site (Akram and Kumar, 2017). One of the largest social media platforms on the internet is known as Facebook. It is a platform supported by feeds, groups, pages and communities that share videos, photos and articles online to interact with similar-minded individuals, therefore, get feedback and comment on one’s updates. “It is predicted that more than 1 million small and medium-sized businesses use the platform to advertise their business.” (Akram and Kumar, 2017). The platform has a group section where you can join public groups or request to join private ones. With all these features in hand, the community is getting to know each other with a click of a button, apart from this, find a better communication tool and have easier access to desired resources.

Though Hampton & Wellman, 2018 argue that there is a loss of community where social media has taken a hold of society. “The fundamental nature of community is indeed changing as social media melds with in-person connectivity”. This is not the case at all, in fact, the economy is boosted as well as job opportunities have all expanded thanks to social media.

Arrange meetings, conferences and stay in touch using the right social media platforms

There was a large panic among communities when they realized they could no longer meet up or arrange events during the pandemic. Therefore, they went on social media searching for content and news in order to amplify the current situation and get updates from peers. YouTube and Twitter, for example, give users instant access to an unparalleled volume of content, which can reinforce rumours and false information (Cinelli et al., 2020). This has impacted a positive shift in terms of watching traditional news to making people ask more direct questions, looking for the right answers. This process was proven to be helpful because people had to involve in public debates surrounding the controversial issue. This change away from the traditional news paradigm has a significant impact on societal views and narrative framing; it also has an impact on policymaking, political communication, and the evolution of public discussion (Cinelli et al., 2020).

As a result of this, people are more tolerant and aware when it comes to differentiating between fake news and real news. This is great because in the future if we undergo any similar process like a lockdown, we will better identify real social media feed news from fake ones.

As the usage of social media platforms increases such as Facebook or Instagram, people are more open and freer to posting whatever their feel like is going on in their lives in fact they have so much power to influence, change and adjust any curriculum. A student can update their Facebook feed and get others engaged on an idea or an opinion that he has planned in his mind. Reading through comments and replies sharing mutual appreciation for the engagement effort. This way more and more power is being accumulated where a community has the potential to influence, change and adapt under any circumstances. This all has been proven correct when there was a worldwide pandemic, and we were under lockdown rules in accordance with the government. As evident, social media usage tripled during lockdown and people were affluent to influence others in a positive and supportive way. The use of digital communication platforms (i.e., Zoom or MS Teams) and digital technologies for teaching and learning has now significantly grown in speed and scale (Kamal, 2020).

Businesses could only operate with customers via social media and online campaigns

Though social media has helped many students and young adults during lockdowns, the only way businesses could operate was through it. Video chats, platforms like skype, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have made it more than attainable to get in contact with someone physically without having to leave the residence. This made business meetings, conferences and even reading and sharing documents possible and accessible. As a communication medium, social media has the benefit of facilitating two-way communication between a firm and its stockholder (Kim & Hastak, 2018). In addition, improve an organization’s performance in a variety of ways, including achieving corporate goals and boosting annual revenues (Kim & Hastak, 2018). It is a vital aspect to keep life moving forward when things get too crowdy, various social networking platforms can be used to advertise a business. Customers can stay connected and interact in a more personal manner.

The spread of misinformation amplified on digital platforms is proven to be as much of a threat as the virus itself. People can use social media to keep themselves secure and informed. Much research has looked at social media data to better understand the networks and extract vital information for developing a disaster mitigation plan before and after a disaster (Kim & Hastak, 2018). The only way this data can be collected is through focus groups and surveys online which can be done and promoted with the appropriate social media marketing.

Researchers use data collected via social media such as surveys to base studies and gather useful metrics

The research group could promote their activities to potential clients/ targeted audiences through social media Ads and proper marketing strategies. Targeted Ads on social media are affordable and cheap where any business despite the size could run their own ads to their followers and boost their insights to achieve a good number of participants involved in the survey. If the results are not sufficient, the company could run even further ads on a larger scale and measure them based on performance. This way, the issue of spreading misinformation could be tackled easily and reduced with more and more practices. Loss of communities can be prevented too.

Big governmental institutions used Facebook to update their residents on worldwide pandemics such as covid 19

The only way to follow up with government updates on lockdown was to either watch the news or simply go on social media and look up the latest update on their account. Big institutions have used social media to rally support in decision making, more and more experiments are being done by the government on social media platforms to gather and collect data that could be useful in pulling people out of their current situation into a better one. Politicians’ toolkits for campaigning, rallying, and fund-raising now include social media as a routine component (Mickoleit, 2014). Some political leaders have more social media followings than the institution they represent, this is because social media users are more personal when it comes to big identities and celebrities. i.e., heads of state and heads of government, are more popular on social media than the institutions they represent (Mickoleit, 2014). Followers are always more interested to see a celebrity or an important figure update and what they have been promoting lately, it is a more personal act rather than following the institutions they represent since sometimes it doesn’t really clarify their needs, answers and has a bit of uncertainty to it. The goal and benefits of institutional social media users are not as evident as they are for political figures. This causes confusion among government agencies about how to best use social media and the ramifications for strategic goals and day-to-day operations (Mickoleit, 2014).

This confusion could easily be solved if political personalities with the help of the institutions they represent, paid more attention to the way social media followers operate and engage with their content. Any marketing campaign that is run and operating by the institution should be promoted via its political figure’s social accounts. Therefore, this confusion could be cleared away and better metrics come out of it. Political leaders can see concrete results from their usage of social media, such as through social media campaigns that result in increased funds, support, or votes (Mickoleit, 2014).

This way, serious issues that are a big threat to citizens’ well-being is easily tackled with the aid of social media. The process consists of Running and collecting surveys via governmental institutions’ platforms (which could be run through ad campaigns if for a larger data analytics) and shared along with its political personalities, not only is this going to reach every single person that uses social media locally but, it could arouse more in people to come together and act as a community to change the current situation by adapting to what the government has a display of rules. As well as governments running ads to better help situations in an emergency such as a pandemic, they could also use social media to make the political policy process more inclusive.

Social media offer new opportunities to reduce political exclusion, by allowing ad-hoc and diffuse interest groups to place items on the political agenda (Mickoleit, 2014). It speeds up the process for communities to participate in a more responsive and collaborative way by dedicating their resources to establishing better credentials. All these opportunities benefit the community in terms of connections and building a better bond.

All in all, the recent pandemic has proved the essentiality of social media in every aspect of life. Students rely on it to get the latest feedback from peers, friends and family. It was the only way, students could get in touch with their tutors, watch lectures and engage in community groups. Furthermore, meetings, conferences and even reading and sharing documents possible and accessible.

Businesses stayed in touch with their customers using their online platforms to communicate the latest deals and keep customers updated on the latest trends. Data collection is all done via social media marketing and advertisements on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Big government institutions used it to rally support in decision making when it came to public emergencies. Nevertheless, it helped us all find better ways to stay connected and fond a better bond with our community. 

References:

Akram, W., Department of Computer Applications, GDC Mendhar, Poonch, India, & Kumar, R. (2017). A study on positive and negative effects of social media on society. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, 5(10), 351–354. https://doi.org/10.26438/ijcse/v5i10.351354

Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C. M., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A. L., Zola, P., Zollo, F., & Scala, A. (2020). The COVID-19 social media infodemic. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 16598. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5

Hampton, K. N., & Wellman, B. (2018a). Lost and saved . . . Again: The moral panic about the loss of community takes hold of social media. Contemporary Sociology, 47(6), 643–651. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306118805415

Kamal, M. M. (2020). The triple-edged sword of COVID-19: understanding the use of digital technologies and the impact of productive, disruptive, and destructive nature of the pandemic. Information Systems Management, 37(4), 310–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2020.1820634

Kim, J., & Hastak, M. (2018). Social network analysis: Characteristics of online social networks after a disaster. International Journal of Information Management, 38(1), 86–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.08.003

Mickoleit, A. (2014), “Social Media Use by Governments: A Policy Primer to Discuss Trends, Identify Policy Opportunities and Guide Decision Makers”, OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, No. 26, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jxrcmghmk0s-en.

Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research, 5(2), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.7753/ijcatr0502.1006