By the end of this article you ought to be navigating this topic without difficulty. But let us begin by mastering a little more about the rise of what is now called customer made media and how it's marked the change in the way we utilize cyber space.
Cyber Space and the computer software which has been produced to run on it has made it so easy for anyone to publish content and make this content accessible to countless people. In essence, customers are given a voice to air their views to a massive audience. Long gone are the days when cyber space was just for research, business sites and porn :) ... today the Internet is for all of its users - we can contribute, we could communicate our thoughts, our videos, our resources - in short we, as an individuals are forming what's available and no voice goes unheard.
Online conversations are taking place every day in the form of customer generated media and while PR has commonly concentrated on the media as produced by reporters, the most trusted channels for contemporary people are average people reporting their experiences. In a survey by Forrester Search, 25% of customer participants said they trusted the opinions of fellow people most importantly other forms of media referral or marketing. Regarding to Edelman's latest Trust Barometer the most reputable source of information concerning a business is... "someone just like me".
It is for this reason that participating in Social Media can be highly beneficial to both people in addition to businesses.
Wikipedia describes Social Media as "the online technologies and practices that people utilize to share with you content material, suggestions, insights, experiences, views, and media by themselves."
Recently there has been the huge growth of blogs, wiki's, podcasts, social networking websites and moblogs - together they form what is loosely called Social Media; the ability for anybody to publish almost any content without the need of the typical expenses and hindrances associated with conventional media. This brand new publishing freedom has lead to a surge of fresh content material.
We see a growing number of instances of Social Media turning out to be incorporated within the conventional media landscape. Newspaper writers are blogging, YouTube and Facebook are making the newspaper news headlines and a lot of television advertisements are examples of CGM to say but a few. This new media is enveloping traditional media and borders are becoming fuzzy - in brief a new challenge for media experts has initiated.
Over the last couple years, hundreds of Social Media type sites happen to be launched and over the next few weeks we'll be looking into these numerous kinds and the major players in each field:
- Photograph Sharing
- Videos Sharing
- Information Sharing
- Social Networks
- Blogging
- Forums
This is simply a brief summation on the subject of Social Media. There's more to it and there are arguments why it's helpful to understand about social media.
