Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as
user-generated content (UGC) or
consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed to be a driving factor in the idea that the current period in time will be defined as the
Attention Age.
Social media can be said to have three components;
- Concept (art, information, or meme).
- Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
- Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).
Common forms of social media;
- Concepts, slogans, and statements with a high memory retention quotient, that excite others to repeat.
- Grass-Roots direct action information dissemination such as public speaking, installations, performance, and demonstrations.
- Electronic media with 'sharing', syndication, or search algorithm technologies (includes internet and mobile devices).
- Print media, designed to be re-distributed.
History
The use of the term "social media" has risen steadily since July 2006.
["Google Trends: social media," trends.google.com, http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22social+media%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0] At that time, this Wikipedia article on "social media" defined it as a term "used to describe media which are formed mainly by the public as a group, in a social way, rather than media produced by journalists, editors and media conglomerates."
["Wikipedia: social media (9 July 2006)," wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_media&oldid=62939074]Chris Shipley (Co-founder and Global Research Director for Guidewire Group) is often considered the first person to have coined the term "social media" as we understand it today. The BlogOn 2004 conference, July 22-23, 2004, focused on the "business of social media." Shipley and Guidewire Group used the term "social media" in the months leading up to that event to discuss the coming together of blogging, wikis, social networks, and related technologies into a new form of participatory media.
The term was also used by Tina Sharkey (co-founder of iVillage, former SVP of AIM and Social Media, and now head of BabyCenter.com) in 1997 to describe a form of community-driven Internet content; and by Darrell Berry in 1995 to describe software systems (such as his multimedia MOO client, Matisse), which facilitate the collaborative building of community and the subjective experience of shared "space" via electronic media. He referred to such systems as "social media architectures'.
Distinction from industrial media
Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.
"Industrial media" are commonly referred to as "traditional", "broadcast" 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. The properties that help describe the differences between social media and industrial media depend on the study. Some of these properties are:
- Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.
- Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically owned privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.
- Usability - industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media do not, or in some cases reinvent skills, so anyone can operate the means of production.
- Recency - the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can be long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response). As industrial media are currently adopting social media tools, this feature may well not be distinctive anymore in some time.
- Permanence - industrial media, once created, cannot be altered (once a magazine article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same article) whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.
Community media constitute an interesting hybrid of industrial and social media. Though community-owned,
some community radios, TV and newspapers are run by professionals and some by amateurs. They use both social and industrial media frameworks.
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" to describe the underlying economic, social, and technological characteristics of what has come to be known as "social media".
media sometimes need more ref.
Andrew Keen criticizes social media in his book
The Cult of the Amateur, writing, "Out of this anarchy, it suddenly became clear that what was governing the infinite monkeys now inputting away on the Internet was the law of digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated. Under these rules, the only way to intellectually prevail is by infinite filibustering."
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 has been touted as presenting a fresh direction for marketing by allowing companies to talk with consumers, as opposed to talking at them.
["Social Media: the future of small business marketing," Constructaquote.com, http://www.constructaquote.com/home/business-guides/social-media.aspx]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 are not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments, instant messaging or even editing the stories themselves.
Examples
Social media can take many different forms, including
Internet forums,
weblogs,
social blogs,
wikis,
podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Technologies include:
blogs, picture-sharing,
vlogs, wall-postings,
email,
instant messaging, music-sharing,
crowdsourcing, and
voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via
social network aggregation platforms like
Mybloglog and
Plaxo.
Examples of social media software applications include:
Communication
Collaboration
Multimedia
Reviews and Opinions
Entertainment
Other
In recent years, numerous companies and brands have begun using the platforms and channels above to help market their products. Healthcare and pharma companies have been slower than many other industries to adopt these technologies due to regulatory concerns. Recently, this has changed with many healthcare and pharma companies using social media to communicate with physicians and patients.
See also
