Social media is just a buzzword or umbrella term for people communicating online.
The most amazing aspect is the ease at which anyone can publish material. An individual can publish cheaply (even for free), instantly and to a wide audience– possibly a worldwide audience.
Wikipedia says:
Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content.
A school student can create their own blog or website, publishing content to a mass audience, and gaining feedback on that content. People can distribute and share articles and news stories. Before the World Wide Web happened, there were huge obstacles to publishing to a wide audience. The options of television, print media (newspapers and magazines) and radio can involve huge obstacles– such as the costs, access to printing machinery, and so on.
How we communicate online
In the online world, we can communicate via email, discussion forums, support forums, blogs, chat, news groups, business networks, feeds, podcasts, video, social shopping websites, virtual worlds and a massive variety of social media websites. Twitter, Facebook and Digg are examples of well-known social media sites.
Social media can include user-generated content (UGC)– which is the members of a website creating content through posts, videos, comments, photos, reviews and other material. This is in stark contrast to traditional media (TV, print media, radio) where the material is presented to consumers.
To gain a quick snapshot of some of the sites out there, take a look at the share/ bar at the bottom of this post (mouse over it, and then click the little down button at the bottom)
StumbleUpon, Furl, SiteULike, Yahoo Buzz, ShoutWire, Xerpi, Wink, Mixx, Bebo, Diigo… are just a few. And there are more coming all the time.
Social media burnout
It’s enough to make your throw your hands up in the air and say, “I can’t keep up with all of that!”
Which brings us to another common term– social media burnout. People who conduct business online can especially feel the effects of social media burnout– to gain exposure for your business can mean exhausting hours trying to maintain a presence across a variety of different social networking mediums. A better option could be to choose the online networking media you actually enjoy, and pay a public relations expert to take you the rest of the way.
Social media is swiftly evolving, and there are many more losers than winners when it comes to social media startups. Creating a website that captures the imaginations of web users and allows them to communicate effectively and easily is a task that many entrepreneurs and programmers strive for.
Your unique username in social media
If you’d like to check if your username is available across the most popular social media websites, knowem.com offers a program where you can type in your username (or desired username) and see if it has already been registered. knowem.com “…..checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites.”
The image at the top of this page shows the know em? website.
