What is social media?
About what is social media, more and more people are interested every day. This is because the Internet began to conquer the world. Every day the number of Internet users is growing. Well now not about this.
So what is social media?
Social media is a set of online technologies that allow users to communicate with each other. Communication can be of different forms – users can share their opinions, experience and knowledge, interact with each other, establish contacts, and share news, information, videos, photos, music and links.
How it all began.
It all began with electronic bulletin boards in the late 70’s. Electronic bulletin boards were the first type of site that allowed users to log in and communicate with each other, albeit very slowly compared to what we are doing today.
After the electronic bulletin board came online services, such as CompuServe and Prodigy. They were the first truly serious attempts to access the Internet.
Then the world learned about ICQ and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
Dating sites are considered the first social networks. They first began to appear almost immediately as people began to use the Internet. They allowed users to create accounts (usually with photos) and communicate with other users.
Following the dating sites appeared early social networks, but they almost did not remember anything.
In 1999, LiveJournal was launched, which used a different approach to the concept of social networks. It was built as a social network of constantly updated blogs.
Then began to be released already major achievements in the field of social networks, such as Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and of course Facebook.
Social media have come a long way from electronic bulletin boards to large social networks. And they continue to develop daily. With large social networks and sites that change almost every day, this niche will evolve further and all subsequent years.
Seven Types of Social Media
- The Internet community;
- Blogs;
- Virtual games;
- Social networks;
- Communities for the production of joint content;
- Joint projects;
- Geosocial services.
Features of Social Media
- Accessibility of information;
- Minimizing personal space;
- Absence of spatial limitations;
- Responsiveness (real-time response).
Using Social Media
The vast majority of marketers (88%) already use social media to advertise their brands and products. But this kind of advertising began to be practiced quite recently. It is interesting that owners of their own business are more likely to use social media than wage earners. Among owners, this is done by more than 90%, and among hired employees – only 81%. Quite suspiciously refer to social media individual entrepreneurs. The main fears in the ratio of social networks were related to the fact that, in their opinion, the owners and moderators of such portals are not able to control the content posted by users. And the neighborhood with obscene content is potentially dangerous for the brand, because it is fraught with unwanted associations and scandalous stories.
The most significant social media for advertising your business are:
- Twitter;
- Blogs;
- Social networks;
- LinkedIn;
- Facebook.