What to do for Social Media Day? Get connected!

The largest meetup scheduled this year is in São Paulo, Brazil, with more than 1,000 RSVPs, followed by New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Toronto, and Barcelona.

Some cities – in the US and abroad – officially declared June 30 Social Media Day. They include New York; San Carlos, Calif.; San Jose, Calif.; Toronto; Victoria, B.C.; Vancouver, B.C.; and Dublin, Ireland. Arizona is the only state to officially recognize Social Media Day.

Why June 30? It's completely arbitrary, says Peters. That was simply about the time last year when Mashable staff members realized the import of social media in so many lives.

Since 2008, users of social media have nearly doubled, according to a survey released this month by Pew Internet, a project of the Pew Research Center. Fifty-nine percent of Internet users say they use at least one social networking site, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or MySpace.

Users of these sites span from teenagers to grandparents, though use is heaviest among the younger set. Eighty percent of adults aged 18 to 35 use social media, according to the survey. Still, more than half of adults who use social media are over 35.

Social media has caught on so rapidly because “people already wanted to do the things that Facebook, Twitter, and social media do,” Levinson says. People not only want to receive information, but they want to discuss it with as many people as possible.

“The key growth in the next few years is the devices that we use to use this social media. We started out five years ago on desktop computers, and now they’re moving to mobile devices that we carry with us,” Levinson says. “We’re going to see more in that direction, meaning devices that are smaller and more powerful.”

Yet, even in places like Kauai, where “if you brought a smart phone out at the dinner table, people would be horrified,” social media is spreading, says Sherman.

"I finally had an ephiphony of how to gently bring that here," says Sherman, who planned a meetup at a local restaurant for small-business and individual proprietors to discuss ways to incorporate social media into their organizations. “Social Media Day is helping us pull forward.”

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