Social Media is everywhere. There is no escaping it.
Twenty years ago there was a raise in households buying PC’s. This encouraged more and more people to get on the Internet. Then there were PC’s for each individual within the household. Now there is a never ending grow of people purchasing SmartPhones, which almost carry out all of the functions of your standard PC. This is making it easier for everyone to be on the Internet on the go. It is now hard to find a point during the day where you cannot access the Internet.
What do people look at whilst on the Internet? – Social Media.
Everyone is constantly online talking to their friends, sharing what they’re doing and finding out what other people are up too. It’s happening all day, every day. Social Media never sleeps.
What is Social Media?
The best way to define Social Media is to break it down. Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper, radio or television. Therefore Social Media would be the social instrument on communication.
In Web 2.0 terms, this would be a website that doesn’t just give you information, but it will interact with you as you receive the information. These interactions can be as simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote on an article. It can even be as complex as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the ratings of other people with similar interests to you.
Try and think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter. Social Media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too. This allows you to express your opinions and thoughts on any matter and have them open for discussion with other people.
Is Social Media and Social News the same?
It is very easy to confuse Social Media with Social News because we often refer to members of news teams as
“The Media”. To make matters worse, we also get confused with the fact that a Social News site is also a Social Media site as it falls into that broader category.
Saying that Social News is the same as Social Media is like saying that Cars are Transport. A Car is a type of transport, then again so are Bikes, Boats and Planes. So while Social News is a form of Social Media, so are Social Networking and Wikis.
Here are some examples of Social Media Websites:
Social Bookmarking: Delicious, Blinklist and Simpy. You interact by tagging websites and search through websites bookmarked by other people.
Social News: Digg, Propeller and Reddit. You interact by voting for articles and comment on them.
Social Networking: Facebook, Twitter, Hi5 and Last.FM. You interact by adding friends, following people, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions.
Social Photo and Video Sharing: YouTube and Flickr. You interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions.
Wikis: Wikipedia and Wikia. You interact by adding articles and editing existing articles.
What is it?
Social Networking is based on a certain structure that allows people to both express their individuality, opinions, emotions and thoughts whilst meeting people with similar interests. The structure will usually include having profiles, friends or followers, blog posts, widgets and quite often something unique to the site itself. For example on Facebook you’re able to “Poke” someone, on Twitter you can “Re-Tweet” someone and on “Bebo” you can share love once a day.
