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Social media are computer-mediated online platform that allow people, companies, and other organizations, including non-profit organizations and governments, to create, share, or exchange information, career interests,[1] ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services available in the 2010s introduces challenges of definition; however, there are some common features:[2] (1) social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications,[2][3] (2) user-generated content (UGC) such as text posts or comments, digital photos or digital video posts are the lifeblood of the social media organism,[2][3] (3) users create their own profiles for the website or app, including their real name (or a pseudonymous username), demographic information, and information about their interests; this profile is inputted by the user onto a standardized template that is designed and maintained by the social media organization,[2][4] and (4) social media facilitate the development of online social networks and relationships by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals and/or groups, or offering tools that enable the user to seek out other users with compatible interests.[2][4]
Social media use web-based and mobile technologies on smartphones and tablet computers to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals, communities and organizations can share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content or pre-made content posted online. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities, and individuals.[5] Social media changes the way individuals and large organizations communicate, because a regular, relatively anonymous person can post comments directly under the official post of a major organization. These changes are the focus of the emerging field oftechnoself studies.
Social media differ from traditional paper-based or industrial media such as TV broadcasting in many ways, including quality,[6] reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers).[7] This is in contrast to traditional media that operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers), such as a paper newspaper which is delivered to many subscribers. Some of the most popular social media websites are Facebook (and its associated Facebook Messenger), WhatsApp, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Baidu Tieba, pinterest, Linkedin,Google+, YouTube, viber and Snapchat. These social media websites have more than 100,000,000 registered users.
Observers have noted a range of positive and negative impacts from social media use. Social media can help to improve individuals' sense of connectedness with real and/or online communities and social media can be an effective communications (or marketing) tool for corporations, entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, including advocacy groups and political parties and governments. At the same time, concerns have been raised about possible links between heavy social media use and depression and even the issues ofcyberbullying, online harassment and "trolling". According to Nielsen, Internet users continue to spend more time with social media sites than any other type of site. At the same time, the total time spent on social media in the U.S. across PC and mobile devices increased by 99 percent to 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 66 billion minutes in July 2011.[8] For content contributors, the benefits of participating in social media have gone beyond simply social sharing to building reputation and bringing in career opportunities and monetary income, as discussed in Tang, Gu, and Whinston (2012).[9]
Definition and classification
A screenshot from the Soelaborate social media website. The "sign up" section on the right asks users to input their personal information, so that a user profile for them can be created on the site.
The variety and evolving stand-alone and built-in social media services introduces several challenges of definition.[2] In the 2010s, there are social media services for computer users and a range of mobile deviceusers such as smartphone owners and even video game-based services. Furthermore, the idea that social media are defined simply as technologies with the ability to bring people together provides too broad a definition. Such a broad definition would suggest that the telegraph and telephone were also social media – not the digital and electronic technologies scholars are intending to describe.[10] The terminology is also unclear, with some referring to social media as social networks.[4] One definition of social media is forms of electronic communication (such as websites) through which people and organizations create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, etc.[11]
A recent attempt[2] at providing a clear definition reviewed the literature and identified four commonalities unique to current social media services:
(1) social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications,[2][3]
(2) user-generated content (UGC) such as text posts, online comments, digital photos, videos and links are the lifeblood of the social media organism,[2][3]
(3) users create service-specific profiles for the site or app with their name or a pseudoname, information on their age/gender and interests. These profile templates are designed and maintained by the social media organization or website,[2][4] and
(4) social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals and/or groups.[2][4]
Classification
Classification of social media and overview of how important different types of social media (e.g. blogs) are for each of a company's operational functions (e.g.marketing)[12]
Social media technologies take many different forms including blogs, business networks, enterprise social networks, forums,microblogs, photo sharing, products/services review, social bookmarking, social gaming, social networks, video sharing, andvirtual worlds.[12] The development of social media started off with simple platforms such as sixdegrees.com.[13] Unlike instant messaging clients such as ICQ and AOL's AIM, or chat clients like IRC, iChat or Chat Television, sixdegrees.com was the first online business that was created for real people, using their real names. However, the first social networks were short-lived because their users lost interest. The Social Network Revolution has led to the rise of the networking sites. Research[14]shows that the audience spends 22 percent of their time on social networking sites, thus proving how popular social media platforms have become.
Distinction from other media
Virality
Some social media sites have greater potential for content that is posted there to spread virality over social networks. This is an analogy to the concept of a viral infectious disease in biology, some of which can spread rapidly from an infected person to another person. In a social media context, content or websites that are "viral" (or which "go viral") are those with a greater likelihood that users will reshare content posted (by another user) to their social network, leading to further sharing. In some cases, posts containing controversial content (e.g., Kim Kardashian's nude photos that "broke the Internet" and crashed servers) or fast-breaking news have been rapidly shared and re-shared by huge numbers of users. Many social media sites provide specific functionality to help users reshare content – for example, Twitter's retweet button, Pinterest's pin function or Tumblr's reblog function. Businesses have a particular interest in viral marketing tactics because such a campaign can achieve widespread advertising coverage (particularly if the "viral" reposting itself makes the news) for a fraction of the cost of a traditional marketing campaign (e.g., billboard ads, television commercials, magazine ads, etc.) Nonprofit organisations and activists may have similar interests in posting content online with the hopes that it goes viral. The social news website Slashdot sometimes has news stories that, once posted on its website, "go viral"; the Slashdot effect refers to this situation.
Mobile use
Young people have high usage rates of smartphones, which enables this demographic to be significant users of social media websites.
Mobile social media refers to the use of social media on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. This is a group of mobile marketing applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.[15] Due to the fact that mobile social media run on mobile devices, they differ from traditional social media by incorporating new factors such as the current location of the user (location-sensitivity) or the time delay between sending and receiving messages (time-sensitivity). According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media applications can be differentiated among four types:[15]
1. Space-timers (location and time sensitive): Exchange of messages with relevance mostly for one specific location at one specific point in time (e.g. Facebook Places; Foursquare)
2. Space-locators (only location sensitive): Exchange of messages, with relevance for one specific location, which are tagged to a certain place and read later by others (e.g. Yelp; Qype, Tumblr)
3. Quick-timers (only time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media applications to mobile devices to increase immediacy (e.g. posting Twitter messages or Facebook status updates)
4. Slow-timers (neither location, nor time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social mediaapplications to mobile devices (e.g. watching aYouTube video or reading/editing a Wikipedia article)
Business potential
Although traditional social media offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, economic-sector mobile social-media makes use of the location- and time-sensitive aspects of social media in order to engage in marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, and relationship development/loyalty programs.[15]
· Marketing research: Mobile social media applications offer data about offline consumer movements at a level of detail heretofore limited to online companies. Any firm can know the exact time at which a customer entered one of its outlets, as well as comments made during the visit.[15]
· Communication: Mobile social media communication takes two forms: company-to-consumer (in which a company may establish a connection to a consumer based on its location and provide reviews about locations nearby) and user-generated content. For example, McDonald's offered $5 and $10 gift-cards to 100 users randomly selected among those checking in at one of its restaurants. This promotion increased check-ins by 33% (from 2,146 to 2,865), resulted in over 50 articles and blog posts, and prompted several hundred thousand news feeds and Twitter messages.[15]
· Sales promotions and discounts: Although customers have had to use printed coupons in the past, mobile social media allows companies to tailor promotions to specific users at specific times. For example, when launching its California-Cancun service, Virgin America offered users who checked in through Loopt at one of three designated Border Grill taco trucks in San Francisco and Los Angeles between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on August 31, 2010, two tacos for $1 and two flights to Mexico for the price of one.[15]
· Relationship development and loyalty programs: In order to increase long-term relationships with customers, companies can construct loyalty programs that allow customers who check-in regularly at a location to earn discounts or perks. For example, American Eagle Outfitters remunerates such customers with a tiered 10%, 15%, or 20% discount on their total purchase.[15]
· e-Commerce: Social media sites are increasingly implementing marketing-friendly strategies, creating platforms that are mutually beneficial for users, businesses, and the networks themselves in the popularity and accessibility of e-commerce, or online purchases. Mobile social media applications such as Amazon.com and Pinterest have started to influence an upward trend in the popularity and accessibility of e-commerce, or online purchases.[16][need quotation to verify]
E-commerce businesses may refer to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.
People obtain information, education, news, and other data from electronic and print media. Social media are distinct from industrial or traditional media such as newspapers, television, and film as they are comparatively inexpensive and accessible. They enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information. Industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information as in most cases the articles go through many revisions before being published.
One characteristic shared by both social and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach no people or millions of people.[17] Some of the properties that help describe the differences between social and industrial media are:
1. Quality: In industrial (traditional) publishing—mediated by a publisher—the typical range of quality is substantially narrower than in niche, unmediated markets. The main challenge posed by content in social media sites is the fact that the distribution of quality has high variance: from very high-quality items to low-quality, sometimes abusive content.[6]
2. Reach: Both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and are capable of reaching a global audience. Industrial media, however, typically use a centralized framework for organization, production, and dissemination, whereas social media are by their very nature more decentralized, less hierarchical, and distinguished by multiple points of production and utility.
3. Frequency: The number of times an advertisement is displayed on social media platforms.
4. Accessibility: The means of production for industrial media are typically government and/or corporate (privately owned); social media tools are generally available to the public at little or no cost.
5. Usability: Industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Conversely, most social media production requires only modest reinterpretation of existing skills; in theory, anyone with access can operate the means of social media production.
6. Immediacy: 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).
7. 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 a hybrid of industrial and social media. Though community-owned, some community radio, TV, and newspapers are run by professionals and some by amateurs. They use both social and industrial media frameworks. Social media have also been recognized for the way they have changed how public relations professionals conduct their jobs.[18] They have provided an open arena where people are free to exchange ideas on companies, brands,[19] and products. As stated by Doc Searls and David Wagner, two authorities on the effects of Internet on marketing, advertising, and PR, "The best of the people in PR are not PR types at all. They understand that there aren't censors, they're the company's best conversationalists."[20] Social media provides an environment where users and PR professionals can converse, and where PR professionals can promote their brand and improve their company's image by listening and responding to what the public is saying about their product.
Business performance
Social media have a strong influence on business activities and business performance. There are four channels by which social media resources are transformed into business performance capabilities:[21]
1. Social capital: represents the extent to which social media affects firms' relationships with society and increase corporate social performance capabilities.
2. Revealed preferences: represents the extent to which social media exposes customers' likings (e.g., "likes" and followers) and increase financial capabilities (e.g., stock price, revenue, profit).
3. Social marketing: represents the extent to which social marketing resources (e.g., online conversations, sharing links, online presence) are used to increase financial capabilities (e.g., sales, acquisition of new customers).
4. Social corporate networking: Social corporate networking refers to the informal ties and linkages of corporate staff through social networks. Social corporate networking can increase operational performance capabilities.
There are four tools that engage experts, customers, suppliers, and employees in the development of products and services using social media. Companies can use these tools to improve their business capacity and performance.[22]
Management
There is an increasing trend towards using social media monitoring tools that allow marketers and companies to search, track, and analyze online conversations on the Web about their brand or products or about related topics of interest.[23][24] This can be useful in public relations management and advertising campaign tracking, allowing the user to measure return on investment, competitor-auditing, and general public engagement. Tools range from free, basic applications to subscription-based, more in-depth tools. Social media tracking also enables companies to respond quickly to online posts that criticize their product or service. By responding quickly to critical online posts, and helping the user to resolve the concerns, this helps the company to lessen the negative effects that online complaints can have about company product or service sales. In the US, for example, if a customer criticizes a major hotel chain's cleanliness or service standards on a social media website, a company representative will usually quickly be alerted to this critical post, so that the company representative can go online and express concern for the sub-par service and offer the complaining person a coupon or discount on their next purchase, plus a promise to forward their concerns to the hotel manager so that the problem will not be repeated.
The "honeycomb framework" defines how social media services focus on some or all of seven functional building blocks.[5] These building blocks help explain the engagement needs of the social media audience. For instance, LinkedIn users are thought to care mostly about identity, reputation, and relationships, whereas YouTube's primary features are sharing,[25] conversations, groups, and reputation. Many companies build their own social "containers" that attempt to link the seven functional building blocks around their brands. These are private communities that engage people around a more narrow theme, as in around a particular brand, vocation or hobby, rather than social media containers such as Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. PR departments face significant challenges in dealing with viral negative sentiment directed at organizations or individuals on social media platforms (dubbed "sentimentitis"), which may be a reaction to an announcement or event.[26] In a 2011 article,[5] Jan H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy and Bruno S. Silvestre describe the honeycomb relationship as "present[ing] a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups."
The elements of the honeycomb framework include:
· Identity: This block represents the extent to which users reveal their identities in a social media setting. This can include disclosing information such as name, age, gender, profession, location, and also information that portrays users in certain ways.[5]
· Conversations: This block represents the extent to which users communicate with other users in a social media setting. Many social media sites are designed primarily to facilitate conversations among individuals and groups. These conversations happen for all sorts of reasons. People tweet, blog, make online comments and send messages to other users to meet new like-minded people, to ?nd a romantic partner, to build their self-esteem, or to be on the cutting edge of new ideas or trending topics. Yet others see social media as a way of making their message heard and positively impacting humanitarian causes, environmental problems, economic issues, or political debates.[5]
· Sharing: This block represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and receive content, ranging from a short text post to a link or a digital photo. The term 'social' implies that exchanges between people are crucial. In many cases, however, sociality is about the objects that mediate these ties between people—the reasons why they meet online and associate with each other.[5]
· Presence: This block represents the extent to which users can know if other users are accessible. It includes knowing where others are, in the virtual world and/or in the real world, and whether they are available.[5] Some social media sites have icons that indicate when other users are online.
· Relationships: This block represents the extent to which users can be related or linked up to other users. Two or more users have some form of association that leads them to converse, share objects of sociality, send texts or messages, meet up, or simply just list each other as a friend or fan.[5]
· Reputation: This block represents the extent to which users can identify the standing of others, including themselves, in a social media setting. Reputation can have different meanings on social media platforms. In most cases, reputation is a matter of trust, but because information technologies are not yet good at determining such highly qualitative criteria, social media sites rely on 'mechanical Turks': tools that automatically aggregate user-generated information to determine trustworthiness.[5] Reputation management is another aspect and use of social media.
· Groups: This block represents the extent to which users can form communities and sub-communities of people with similar backgrounds, demographics or interests. The more 'social' a network becomes, the wider the group of friends, followers, and contacts can be developed.[5]