What Is Social Media?
It is a phrase that is now widely used but many people do not fully understand what social media actually means or what types of websites are classed as social media websites.
Essentially, social media uses online technology to allow people to share content, personal opinions, swap different perspectives and insights. Whereas traditional media is about “broadcast” (content transmitted or distributed to an audience) social media is better seen as a two-way conversation.
Social media website content can come in many shapes and forms:
- Text - text is often used to put across opinions or write blog posts.
- Images - images and photos can display anything from holiday photos to shots by professional photographers.
- Audio - social media lets you create podcasts (a standard term that defines an ability to listen to audio files on the internet) for users to download.
- Video - video sites mean that you'll be able to record a video and post to the internet.
Any website that allows you to interact with the website and other visitors can be defined as a social media website. The most common types of social media websites are:
- Social networking – websites that allow you to create a personal or business profile then chat, discuss and share information with others. Prime examples of social networking sites are MySpace, Bebo and Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Wikis – wikis are websites that allow you to create, edit and share information about a subject or topic. Wikipedia, or E-how for instance, are some of the world's most popular wikis.
- Video sharing – video-sharing sites allow you to upload and share videos with the rest of the web community. A perfect example of a video sharing website is YouTube.
- Photo sharing – photo-sharing websites allow users to upload pictures and images to a personal account which can then be viewed by web users the world over. Flickr acts as a great example of a successful photo-sharing site.
- News aggregation – news aggregators provide a list of the latest news stories published by users from a range of different websites. Digg and Newsvine for instance, are some of the web's largest news aggregators with some of the most dedicated communities.
- Social bookmarking – social bookmarking sites, for example Del.icio.us , allow users to publicly bookmark web pages they find valuable in order to share them with other internet users.
- Micro-blogging – these websites allow you to post micro blog-like posts that are text based to announce what you are currently doing. Twitter is a good example.
- Message boards - is an online discussion site, chat room or discussion forum. The sites allow you to publish discussions on any subject or a particular topic or interest.
- Review and opinion based - there are many examples of these types of websites on the internet and they are best explained as providing advice or recommendations to other site visitors. Tripadvisor is a good example of this type of social media website.
We have provided links to the right and at the foot of this page to other websites and documents that provide useful advice on how a business may use social media to engage with customers and promote their business.
