Social media – the new age of communication, ground breaking, blah, blah, we’ve heard it all before, right? We have, but social media really is helping to change the world. I’ll explain…

Forget about a quick poke or Facebook Chat message, there is more to social than just the obvious things that the average user considers. Think blogging, micro blogging on Twitter, bringing down crooked governments…Hold up – bringing down crooked governments? Yeah that’s right. Social channels have been crucial in highlighting the injustices and desperation of oppressed nations.

Just this past week, Egyptian activists used social networks to such great effect that the government took the Internet down – that says everything about the power of social networks, doesn’t it. The protests in Iran surrounding the disputed elections were also heavily shaped by the social networking world. Protests were arranged and the inside word from the closed off nation was spread globally. Social turned foreign correspondent.

Interestingly, in 2008 in the U.S, it was Obama’s social media team that may have helped mobilise this new age of digital activists. In Columbia Law School in Upper Manhattan, three key staff from Barack Obama’s social media team: Joe Rospars, Scott Goodstein and Sam Graham-Felsen, gave a presentation to various blogging activists from around the world. The message was how to give “ordinary people the power to connect.”

About two-dozen activists from around the world were present – Egyptians, Iranians and a prolific Colombian event organiser who used Facebook to mobilize an incredible 12-million-strong march against the country’s heavy handed Marxist guerrillas, known as the FARC. There was also non political motives represented - fighting HIV/AIDS in Sri Lanka, the Genocide Intervention Network, the Burma Global Action Network, and anti knife crime.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz gave a talk called “Origins and Tools for Social Change.” Howcast CEO Jason Liebman was there, as was James Glassman, the undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy during the Bush administration and Jared Cohen, a member of Glassman’s staff who specialized in technology and innovation.

So bearing in mind all the resources put into the event and the level of people called upon to speak, has the U.S come up with a new and less Internationally damaging method of deposing a tyrannical leader or oppressive government? I think they might have and Obama seems to have learnt a great deal watching Bush make a hash of International PR.

It seems the Obama way isn’t ‘shoot now, ask questions later’. It’s, allow a nations youth to have a voice and spread their ideas nationally and worldwide. It’s amazing how quickly dissention spreads amongst a nation when the people start to find their voice. Maybe this is a seriously significant piece of (indirect) foreign policy Obama’s administration have come up with…

What do you think? Can social mean the end of Iraq style invasions? Let us know your thoughts…