The Discussion Board Forum assignment this week is taken from chapter 16 of the text, a short
chapter detailing Social Media sites. There is no video associated with this assignment.
Social Media is revolutionizing the way we communicate with one another. It also is becoming a
medium of choice in the way that companies advertise. Provide a comprehensive response for
each of following questions:
• How did social media begin, and how has it found so much favor in such a short period of
time?
• Compare and contrast Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, describing each in your
own words (no citations from the text). Describe and provide an example of each.
• How is a social media chosen and integrated into a marketing plan. How is the effectiveness of
the use of social media measured?
“I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there.” (1
Chron. 29:17 NLT) Explain our responsibility as Christians to be wholesome, truthful, and with
good intent when serving the needs of others in personal or business matters.
Running head: THE DISCUSSION BOARD FORUM 1
The Discussion Board Forum
Student’s name
Institutional Affiliation
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The discussion board forum
There was indeed no mention of the term social media some fifty years ago. However,
the term is known world over not only by both youngsters and adults alike. The very first social
media was created about forty years, in 1978. The social media site was known as the Bulletin
Board System (BBS). The main purpose was to share information by posting it on the site and
also to announce meetings. Social media has undergone a lot of developments since then. The
nineties was an instrumental period for the social media creation (Effing, Hillegersberg &
Huibers, 2011). The fact that social media is interesting is one of the main reasons why the sites
have gained favor across the world.
Twitter was launched in 2006. Known for micro-blogging and social networking, Twitter allows
its users to exchange and share 140 character messages known as tweets. This is the main
distinction between Twitter and other social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. Founded
by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen, YouTube was launched in 2005 ((Effing,
Hillegersberg & Huibers, 2011). The interesting part is that YouTube allows users to share and
upload videos. In terms of watching videos, YouTube is the most preferred site. Mark
Zuckerberg revolutionized the social media world by creating Facebook and launching it in
2004. Initially created for college students, Facebook has become a powerful marketing tool that
is used by the biggest business brands in the world.
Over the years, social media has been embraced as an essential tool for marketing. The
main purpose of marketing is to reach potential clients and social media has the capacity to reach
a lot of people at once. The use of sites like Facebook in marketing has been embraced
worldwide (Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides, 2011). As Christians in the business
world, our main objective and responsibility should be to set the right and truthful standards for
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the operations in the business. Colossians 3:23, the Bible says that Christians should work with
all their hearts. The Bible also stresses that we should be a people full of integrity in the business
dealings. Christians should always have a patient and willing heart to not only deal with business
matters but also with their personal issues.
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References
Effing, R., Van Hillegersberg, J., & Huibers, T. (2011, August). Social media and political
participation: are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube democratizing our political systems?.
In International conference on electronic participation (pp. 25-35). Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg.
Michaelidou, N., Siamagka, N. T., & Christodoulides, G. (2011). Usage, barriers, and
measurement of social media marketing: An exploratory investigation of small and
medium B2B brands. Industrial marketing management, 40(7), 1153-1159.
