Social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter are continually used as an outlet for people looking to express their thoughts, likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams and even fears. According to Pew Internet Project’s research, as of August 2012, nearly 69 percent of online adults use social networking sites thus it makes complete sense why these platforms are now looked at as the go-to way to garner attention, no matter whether is it negative or positive.

First, let’s look a cute way a group of siblings took to their Facebook with the goal of receiving a thousand likes for their creative sign that would in turn give them permission to get a family cat. The Urbano kids from Massachusetts ultimately got over 110,000 likes, so I’m not sure if this means they can now get more than one feline friend, but I digress. And just last week, kids in the Cordell family from Boston, five to be precise, needed a million thumbs up through the site to show their parents what their brood was missing—a cute and adorable puppy. The family received what they were looking for, scoring that astounding total in a mere 14 hours.  

Image via Mirror News

Changing our focus just a tad, Petter Kverneng, revealed to the Facebook world that if he received a million likes he would ultimately get some -- how do we say this?-- female attention? However, the strategic move didn’t work out to his advantage, leading Kverneng to reveal the post was just a joke.

In a much more serious and sad matter, Robbie, 14, and Jazzy, 10, promoted a picture of themselves holding a sign that would raise awareness for organ donation in addition to congenital heart problems. Unfortunately, the brother/sister duo lost their father to this disease and they “wanted to bring more awareness to it because their dad was born with a congenital heart defect called transposition of the great arteries," Samantha Carroll, their mother, told ABC News. The photo has received nearly 408,235 likes so far and the adolescents are hoping that number continues to grow to at least one million.

Those in the marketing space have taken cues from these forward thinking children as well the man mentioned above looking for a little bit of lovin’ and Blush Boutique Miami was one of the first companies to step up the plate, powering a "million likes" challenge that involved a naked model receiving clothes if the picture received a million likes. The first thing that comes to mind is that this individual is mighty lucky they are in Florida as opposed to New York right about now where temperatures are in the very low double digits.  

The reason behind social media mega sites increasingly serving as an advantageous communication channel is the fact that its audience is extremely wide and diverse and of course the biggest factor -- it’s free.

MackWebSolutions commented in a recent piece featured on its website, “We like to think of social media as the most amazing and dynamic knowledge source that you can possibly get your hands on. The way we use social media (and how we teach our clients to use it), is to focus on following the people and companies who provide value. In other words, content and information (blog posts, infographics, video, images, what have you) that is remarkable, fascinating, useful, and, of course, relevant.”

The company does however; outline some crucial steps that must be remembered when leveraging social media. They include: following the right people, sharing valuable stuff and always participating and engaging.