The Importance of Social Networks

You probably heard “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter.”
Questions like “What’s your Instagram?” and “Did you check-in on Foursquare?” are predominant on most young people today.Netizens as, we call them today, are the people engaged online and on social media. You might ask why it is very important to get more “likes” and “follows” on social networks.

Building your Social Network is Important

Your website should get traffics. Your Facebook or Twitter, for example, should be interacted with other people online. These are only possible if you have a strong social networks. Your social networks are not only limited to your friends and followers online, but they can be your friend’s friends, and so on. Imagine you have 1,500 friends on Facebook and one of your friends has 3,000 friends, so that’s incredibly twice as much as yours, converge them together and you have more than 4,500 friends in your circle. That’s why, the more you “like” a page on Facebook or “Follow” on Twitter, the more chances of creating a huge and dynamic online community on a very powerful platform called Social Media.

Social Network is important because this is basically your “community” online where ideas and emotions are being shared and discussed. Relatively, this “community” will be your primary asset when it comes to social media engagement.

At the Davao Catholic Herald, our networks has been evolving not online in Davao City per se but in the entire world. Looking into some reliable statistics, careful analysis on data we receive on a daily basis, our networks has reached even Canada and some countries in Africa. This means that through the Davao Catholic Herald website and social networks, we would be able to deliver the Good News to the ends of the earth. This is to further strengthen our mission to “evangelize through the use of multi-media platforms.”

Pope Francis, on his Twitter account @Pontifex, even proactively uses social media to bring message of peace to the world, esp. to the young people, using the hashtag #PrayForPeace. Pope Francis posts tweets on an average of one tweet per day, on daily basis, being seen worldwide with more than 5 Million followers on all of his nine all-verified Twitter accounts which come in different languages.

If only we’ll maximize the social media platform, by creating a good online community, we can make a smarter and intellectual discussion, based on truth, online that could further promote and strengthen our Catholic Faith. (@perrylamanilao)

Editor’s Note: Perry Paul Lamanilao is a volunteer who handles the social media department of the Archdiocesan Commission on Social Communications and Mass Media, through the Davao Catholic Herald. He is also the co-founder of SHIFT Philippines, a social and digital media learning organization in the Philippines.