Social media in all its various forms have taken the internet by storm; Most people, however limited their knowledge of the web, will have heard of at least a few of the hundreds of sites adored by the masses of Internet users. You’re probably familiar with names like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter, even if you’re not entirely sure what they are or what they’re used for.
In its simplest form, Social Media is a term that describes media that is shared through social interaction using web-based technologies. The creation and sharing of user-generated content; information and knowledge not only consumed by users of the sites but also produced by them.
It can be anything from simple social interaction, emails and messaging, as is the case with many social networking sites like Facebook, to the sharing of video clips, whether homemade or borrowed, like on YouTube.
Social media runs the gamut, from the provision of factual information such as on sites like Wikipedia, the interactive online encyclopedia, compiled and edited by its users, to the more personal manifestations of the many blogs, vlogs, and even microblogs available, such as WordPress and Twitter. Blogs provide a platform for users to update cyberspace with the most private thoughts and mundane activities; micro-blogging, a form of short, pithy, regular updates, and vlogging, blogging on a video camera, takes the concept even further.
Where blogs have limited scope for audience interaction, forums just thrive; any community of people, no matter how tenuous their perceived link, can come together on an Internet forum and message each other in a series of online open letters inviting everyone to join the conversation. Forums exist on just about every topic, from classic cars to taxidermy, and their membership is growing by the hour.
When it comes to sharing video content, whether it’s a vlog, a scene from Great Aunt Mildred’s 90s, a short film, or a clip from Top of the Pops circa 1977, YouTube is in a class of its own. With the advent of new mobile phone video technology, the dawn of an age is coming when every phone can also capture our every move for posterity, and humans, social animals that we are, have a compulsion to share. these ephemeral clips with an audience as large as YouTube abounds and is easy to use and provides a perfect platform.
However, it is through the hundreds of easily accessible social networking sites that the phenomenon of social networking began to seize the public imagination. So beloved by young people, who are rightfully the instigators of so many fads and fads that later seep into the masses, social media started out as a means of sharing information about interests and chatting with friends, but quickly became a byword. of basic communication with options that now include “call me, text me or Facebook”.
It’s no wonder then that the business community has picked up on the buzz and found increasingly inventive ways to capitalize on the growth of this trend; With everything from social media marketing to viral marketing taking the net by storm, it’s surely only a matter of time before our entire lives are lived online in a virtual version of our less colorful offline realities.
