Social Media Baithak with students and film makers at Puri, Orissa

We recently conducted two Social Media Baithaks at the Bring Your Own Film Festival at Puri from 21st to 25th Feb 2011.

1st Baithak was on 22nd Feb 2011 – BYOFF participants, consisting largely of young film makers, artists and photographers.

It was a relatively informed audience. Almost all the participants have an active online presence via Facebook, some also have their own blogs. But few were aware of the finer details of using social media tools. Blogger.com users weren’t aware of how to move their blogs to wordpress, Twitter or Flickr were tools completely unheard of.

Social Media Baithak – A nonprofit initiative by Samyukta Media to promote use of Socia Media amongst artists, activisits, students and ohter unlikely groups

At the start of the Baithak Sanjukta gave a short presentation on her personal journey from being a lawyer to social media expert. Sanjukta’s personal story is a living example of how social media and internet is changing our lives and shaping our culture.

Participants of BYOFF attending the Social Media Baithak at Puri

A prolonged discussion then followed on the much common topic of mainstream media versus social media. A participant argued that at his home out of the 4 family members and 3 still read newspapers while only one accesses news from social media platforms. Going by that, social media has little significance. In response, Sanjukte reiterated the fact that Social Media is the most effective tool for communication with the youth. Turns out, that of the 4 family member 3 who are not on social media are in the bracket of senior citizen. The significant factor here is that today’s youth are the decision makers of tomorrow. They are greater stake holder in the field of media and communications and there is no better way to communicate with them than social media.

…

The second Baithak was on 25th of Feb 2011, conducted with a group of students from  Biju Pattanaik Film & Television Institute of Orissa, Cuttuck.

There were about 20 students studying various aspects of film and television like, sound engineering, Light technique and script and direction.

The Baithak with the students was more lively since owing to their natural tendency to learn more they had a lot of questions about social. The most striking thing in the group was that almost all of them knew about either Facebook or Orkut or both yet none of them had a recognition of the words ‘social media.’ They had also never heard of Blogging. Youtube was partially known amongst them. On the whole these students are urban young who have access to internet which they use mostly for entertainment and social networking purpose. The true potential of social media, that of being a platform to create and disseminate original localized content and mobilize masses around it, is still not known to them.

Social Media Baithak with Students of Biju Pattanaik Institute of Film and Television of Orissa

At Samyukta Media we believe this is the large picture today and therefore it is important to put the focus on creating original content.

Social Media Baithak is a non profit initiative. Please support us by ‘Liking’ the Social Media Baithak page on Facebook.