Media Communities

This week our assigned reading out of Deltina Hay’s social media survival guide covered media communities and the importance of utilizing them for increasing exposure. Hay defines media communities as "social sites where you can save, share, and comment on multimedia items." Basically, media communities bring together people who want to share their photos, videos, music, etc. Media communities are just another example of social media and new ways to connect with people via the Internet.

Apart from using media communities as a new way to connect with others, they can also be a very useful tool in promoting and drawing interest to specific content. Hay uses an example of Dalton Publishing’s use of Flickr to promote various events related to newly published books. Dalton uses Flickr to post pictures of different events such as book signings and book readings for people to access. For those of you unfamiliar with Flickr, it is a image-sharing site that allows you to upload images and pictures to share with others.

Another example of a media community is the well-known video-sharing site, YouTube. Much like Flickr, YouTube allows users to upload video content to the site to share with others. YouTube also serves as a resource for organizations to upload video content of events or promotional videos to reach a high number of viewers.

One of the most important aspects of media communities is the ability to connect the content with blogs or websites. A user can simply load or link the content from a media community such as Flickr or YouTube to their personal or professional website. In my last blog, I discussed the web video I created for The Big Event. This is a perfect example of how you can create content, upload it to a media community, and then add it to your blog.

What are your thoughts on media communities? Do you have a Flickr or YouTube account? If so, describe your experience!