social media

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Social media are Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrated technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

Distinction from industrial media

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively cheap tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media are relatively expensive tools that generally require significant financial capital to publish information (which often limits their use to commercial purposes). Examples of industrial media include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.

"Industrial media" are commonly referred to as "traditional" or "mass" media.

One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people. "Reach" describes one of four properties on which to evaluate social media and industrial media[5]:

1. Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.
2. Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically controlled by for-profit enterprises; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.
3. Usability — industrial media production typically required specialized skills and training. Today's technologies simplify those processes, or in some cases reinvent them, so anyone can operate the means of production.
4. Recency — the time lag between communications produced by industrial media is relatively long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media or Internet-based technologies (which are capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response).

In his 2006 book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler analyzed many of these distinctions and their implications in terms of both economics and political liberty. However, Benkler, like many academics, uses the neologism Network Economy or "network information economy"[6] to describe the underlying economic, social, and technological characteristics of what has come to be known as "social media."

Information outputs and human interaction

Primarily, social media depend on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words to build shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.

Social media utilities create opportunities for the use of both inductive and deductive logic by their users. Claims or warrants are quickly transitioned into generalizations due to the manner in which shared statements are posted and viewed by all. The speed of communication, breadth, and depth, and ability to see how the words build a case solicits the use of rhetoric. Induction is frequently used as a means to validate or authenticate different users' statements and words. Rhetoric is an important part of today’s language in social media.

Social media is not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments or even editing the stories themselves.

Social media marketing

"Social media" signifies a broad spectrum of topics and has several different connotations. In the context of Internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees). Social media optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get one's content more widely distributed across multiple social media services.

Social media marketing has two important aspects. The first, SMO, refers to on-page tactics through which a webmaster can improve a website for the age of social media. Such optimization includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and for these services.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is about building ways that fans of a brand or company can promote it themselves in multiple online social media venues.

Some social media marketers offer to write content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a “viral” video on YouTube and other video sites, including getting involved in blogs, forums, and niche communities. Others in the social media world consider this form of social media marketing Astroturfing or "fake grass roots".

According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau social media council "Social media isn't just about big networks like Facebook and MySpace, it's about brands having conversations.". In fact, most individuals who study the space believe social media is about people having conversations, not brands.

Examples

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

See also:

  • What is social Media?
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  • e-books
  • social-media-marketing-campaigns
  • ROI Social Media & Social Marketing ROI Internal Resources social-media-marketing-campaigns social-shopping social media campaign campaign-learn-more social media External Resources Measuring the ROI from social marketing
  • Campaign Learn More Social Media: Can all companies benefit from Social Media Campaigns? Top Blog Posts on Social Media Campaigning Social Media and SEO Social Media in plain english Social Media Categories Social
  • About Social Media, Social Marketing… Tracking… WHY? Social software is useful for many reasons – conducting market research, understanding modern public relations, and networking relief workers after a disaster are but a few. Different
  • media See also: What is social Media? social-media-marketing-campaigns
  • Sniki Wiki - Share, Compare, or Leverage Social Media. Social Media, Social Marketing… Tracking… WHY? Social software is useful for many reasons – conducting market research, understanding modern public relations, and networking relief workers after a disaster are but a few.
  • Social Media Marketing Campaigns social media campaign is when a company joins in the conversation. They track who is talking about them and respond. This can also include groups, blog posts, forums.
  • About Sniki - The Social Networking Wiki Social Media. What is Social Media? What is "Social Media" or in many cases it is also called "New Media"? These titles simply stand for a network of online sites
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