What is Social Media?

We know what media is, in layman’s term media is an instrument of communication such as newspaper, television or a radio. In the Internet era, a new kind of media is being introduced, this is Social Media.

To simplify what social media is, this is a social instrument of communication in forms of a blog, voice and video. This is a new kind of media that was born from high technology. This could be a website that doesn’t just give information, but interacts with its users while giving them information. This can be as simple as asking for your comments in a certain topic or post or it can be as intricate as Flixter that recommends movies to you based on the ratings of other people.

Social media has become exceptionally popular because it allows people to bond in the on line (real time or not) world to form relationships for personal, political and even business use.

In Business world social media is also referred to as User-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

What is the difference between Social Media and Industrial Media?

Newspapers, television, radio, and film are called Industrial Media and Social Media are distinct from them because the latter are inexpensive and accessible tools that allow anyone to publish or access any information. Industrial media generally require considerable resources to publish information.For many people social media is just a collection of social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster, My Space and Twitter. But social media is much more than that.Here is the list of different forms of social media to give you an idea.

blogs (like WordPress)
content aggregators (like Friend Feed)
crowdsourcing (like Wikipedia)
on line forums (like DigitalPoint)
photo sharing sites (like Flickr)
social networking sites (like Facebook)
social bookmarking sites (like Digg)
streaming sites (like Ustream)
user reviews (like Amazon)
video sharing sites (like YouTube)

Conventional ways of Social Networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small communities, neighborhood subdivisions, universities, or workplaces. But today, social networking is extremely popular on line; this is due to the fact that millions of Internet users are looking to meet other net users to collect first hand information about anything under the sun based on their interest.

Websites are commonly used when it comes to on line social networking. These websites are commonly known as social sites. These Social networking websites act like an on line community of Internet users. Many members of these on line communities share a common interest such as hobbies, politics, or religion.Can Social Media Change the Traditional Marketing?

Because of the sudden rise of the media’s functionality in the field of promotion and marketing of products and services, many people think that they can now drop the traditional marketing strategies and join the bandwagon of the current trend .

But in reality we will never completely replace traditional marketing techniques. The main reason is because not everyone is into this whole media craze. You cannot reach all of your prospective clients by social networking alone.

Call them Old school/stubborn but the fact is there is still a percentage of the population who will still need the traditional advertising methods to be reached.

Author: Real AndrewsArticle Source: EzineArticles.com

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