Unless you’re living in a vacuum you’ve heard of social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and MySpace to name a few. You would have also heard about the masses of people young and old getting in on the action by subscribing to one or many of these sites. And with the growth of mobile applications such as the iPhone they are even more accessible than ever before. Leveraging social media has most businesses and marketers stumped. So what is it? And how should business managers and marketers use it?
What Is Social Media?
Social media enables groups of people (social networks) to engage in conversation or social interactions. These interactions may include sharing personal events, ideas, hobbies, local happenings, political views, favorite restaurants and much more. They allow individuals to broadcast to large groups of people when the inspiration to share occurs. It is so much easier now to keep in touch, share with family, meet new friends or colleagues across vast networks in a timely fashion.
What Is Considered Social Media?
Social media takes many forms. The key distinction between social media and other digital forms of communication is the ability to broadcast, share and interact with content generated by the user (also termed user-generated content) and not by organizations or businesses. Here is a list of types of social media platforms:
- Blogging & Microblogging: WordPress, Blogger, Twitter, TypePad, LiveJournal
- Social Networking: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, MeetUp
- Collaboration: Wikipedia
- Bookmarking: Delicious, StumbleUpon
- Multimedia Sharing: Flickr, SlideShare, YouTube, Vimeo, Zoomer
Why Is Social Media Important To My Business Or Organization?
Word of mouth has always been the most powerful means to spreading news. With the growth of blogging, forums and social networking, sites offering news about current events, local happenings and trends are spreading much faster than ever before. Consumers have grown to rely on these social interactions to stay informed, develop an opinion, and get points of view to help make personal decisions. These interactions are getting smart faster. The value to your business is in the immediacy of these interactions with your customers. Social media is also becoming more pervasive within organizations. CEO blogs, deparment wikis, videos are some of the ways social media is being integrated into corporate intranets.
