Social Media- It's About Community

The power of social media has been apparent for sometime now; It’s power to circumvent ridiculous gagging orders, It’s power to highlight the plight of nations and its power to bring a group of people together in common cause. This week I was privileged to witness first hand the power of social media.

Early in the morning we got chatting with Debbie from Tus Nua Designs about the plight of the small business community in Ireland. Feeling inspired and empowered Debbie decided that the SME community in Ireland needed a place to go on Twitter where they could talk easily to other small business people. Soon we were joined by Olwen Dawe from Irish Business Intelligence who shared our enthusiasms for helping the small business community. Armed with our hashtag (#SMEcommunity) we went out into the world of twitter to raise Irish small business into the spotlight. Before we knew what we had, small business people from across the country were joining in. They voiced concerns, showed support to small business, shared news and information useful to the SME community. A few hours later and #SMEcommunity was the number one trending item in Ireland. 

You see the thing about social media is that it’s a community of people. In this case it was small business people talking and showing the passion that they had for what they did.  The SME community in Ireland is one that fills this writer with a great sense of positivity. While the problems of SMEs have been quite evident in recent time (6 firms a day closing their doors forever on average), we must believe that we are going to survive and thrive. Although at times we feel that the world is coming down on top of us, we must not believe that we are alone. The SME community is out there waiting to listen, to help, to talk, to support and to encourage. We are all part of the same community and together we are showing that many people can have one voice. 

Together we can get Irish business moving in the right direction and will continue to be the shoulders on which our economy rests.

When your tweeting make sure you add #SMEcommunity or #YeSMEcan to your tweets to show support with or to talk to, the Irish SME community. 

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A Massive thank-you to Olwen from Irish Business Intelligence and Debbie from Tus Nua Designs for helping to create #SMEcommunity