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two good days — I realised that there was nothing much except jokes, acres of space on relationships and chain letters. I remembered the last day of downloading the material, I slept in the early hours.

My sister who lives on the other side of town had to phone and inquire about what it was that I had been doing staying up late and chatting online until 3am.

There is no doubt that social media have revolutionised the way people, whether men or women manage their work, family and relationships by the click of a button.

Unlike the yesteryear, when mankind had to make do with a drumbeat to alert the whole village of a pending event, or send a letter to communicate with a loved one living in a faraway place, that can all be done at the click of a button, thanks to technology and other innovations that are coming along with it.

Even 10 years ago, people have always gotten together, collaborated through their church groups and PTAs, told stories over coffee or over the backyard fence, chatting much about nothing, but now social media merely allows people to do what they have always done faster, better and with grandeur, should they choose to do so.

From a persuasive standpoint, social media can be used to surface engagement opportunities and increase participation through building new social norms, something that was not achievable back then.

Social media like Twitter, Hootsuite, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp and blogging now provides opportunities to manage existing relationships, that are thousands of kilometres away in as much as they have always caused irreparable damage within the same context.

Social media has become so powerful and a cheap way of networking for business opportunities that I am amazed when people actually spend hours chatting on social and very trivial issues when they should be making business deals and tapping potential markets for business, to improve their lives.

For instance in the United States, South Africa, Japan and China, a lot of newly established small businesses are making huge profits at a small budget by making use of the social media to advertise their goods and services.

Clothes swapping have become an increasingly popular way for women in the United States to give away undesired items from their wardrobes and get something fresh in return.

With the help of social media, enthusiasts are now attracting hundreds of new participants to their events, where they spend hours exchanging information on what is happening and available business opportunities within their own communities and elsewhere.

In other words, social media can increase the visibility of opportunities to engage, and influences actions so that the visibility of the engagement acts as a catalyst for increased involvement.

Personally I witnessed this type of engagement during the period of the draft constitution campaign period, where Copac members and others interested individuals would give updates on what was happening in the field, while urging those who had not attended the meetings to do so.

In addition to overcoming hindrance to action, social tools help people to connect across cultural, social, and other barriers to interaction.

For women in business, this is especially good news, as they often confront difficulties in securing capital, gaining access to key decision-makers, and finding opportunities to demonstrate their expertise.

The “flattening” effect of social technologies allows women to develop relationships with people previously out of reach, and they can demonstrate their expertise using blogs, webinars, and a host of other social networks, where they can even post pictures of the products that they are selling.

You cant therefore doubt that this form of viral marketing capabilities of retweeting and forwarding messages on all the social forums is something that advertising budget cannot buy because the information travels much faster for little or no cost at all.

Instead of using a profile picture of our adorable husbands, lovely kids, our recently purchase leather lounge suite and the neat hair do that costs a fortune, why don’t we start posting pictures of products that we are selling or talk about the services that we do offer to all the 50 or so people that we have in our contact list?

When I look around my friends, workmates, neighbours and all the people particularly women that I have interacted with at some point in my life, I see a pool of entrepreneurs who are waiting for some big opportunity to come along with a possible funding to start a serious business somewhere.

Others are hoping that some big donor will just knock at their door and present them with a huge cheque to start a business and rent offices somewhere in the northern suburbs out of the blue.

Yes, for some they will at some point come across that opportunity, but the majority would have to work extra hard to establish themselves as entrepreneurs in different fields of their choices.

They shouldn’t however, forget that entrepreneurship is about creativity, it’s about birthing what the business dream.

It means you thread on grounds where others have feared to thread.
It’s about risk taking.

It’s about believing in yourself and grabbing opportunities when they see them, and that includes the same ones that the social media presents to a lot of people daily, but they choose to ignore them and focus on less trivial matters.

Instead of spending hours ogling on the social media, chatting about our well spent relationships and unchanging cycles, lets dare to dream big and use the social media to get ourselves in serious business.

The social media can either make or break your cycle. For scholars when put to good use, it is a readily available source of unending information. It is rather a library at your finger tips.

But as good as the internet is, copying is a no and never as plagiarising has left some people even in high office with egg on the face.

Recently Germany’s minister of education had to resign after being stripped of her doctorate because of plagiarism.

Its how you view it and plan from there.
Social media has revolutionised our lives, make good use of it.