What is Social Media?

Social media refers to the means of communications among people made in virtual communities and networks. Social media allows us to create and exchange user-generated content. Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very narrow facility to give your thoughts on the matter. On the other hand, Social Media is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too.

Where it is used?

Platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn have created online communities where people can share thoughts, ask for help or as little personal information with other members. The result is an enormous amount of information that can be easily shared, searched, promoted, disputed, and created.

Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and many others make finding specific websites increasingly simple by assigning or tagging individual sites with searchable key words.

Advantages of Social Media

While there are risks inherent in online social networking but there are also many potential benefits.

1. Target Audience – Social Media helps to attract the attention of your targeted audience. Now a day’s businesses are now jumping on the social media bandwagon at a rapid pace.

2. Rapid Sharing - Social media enables more rapid sharing of information instead of traditional press releases where a editor proof read before it is published.

3. Branding – With including Blogs social media can be a highly important tool for enhancing your brand. Social media can enable executives to collect input and feedback directly from their target audience. It will also give the insights about why people like or hate our brand.

4. SEO – Social Media is a key component today in Search Engine Optimization. Where SEO relies on a handful of popular search engines to drive target audience here social media expands the potential audience by creating alternate channels.