Social media are computer- mediated technologies that facilitates the generation or sharing of data, ideas, professions, hobbies, and other types of expression through virtual communities and networks. They facilitate communication between people who may not be physically connected to each other. Social media provide an avenue for two or more individuals to interact with each other by the use of media that is accessible to all, usually accessible through the Internet. It is often called social networking. This allows users to form and develop peer-to-peer relationships and groups.
There are two basic types of social media networks: real-time networks according to which one person contacts another and in turn shares data with the other; and background networks according to which a person contacts with others and shares information over long distances by Internet or other means. Most of the real-time networks are collaborative networks while the background networks are non-collaborative ones. The collaborative real-time networks include discussion forums, micro blogging, instant messaging, and video conferencing. On the other hand, the background networks are non-collaborative ones. They include RSS feeds, blog postings, audio conversations, video conferencing, news distribution, photo and video sharing, and community pages. Nowadays social media websites are being used as a source of business communication.
As the number of Internet users increase, the need for open discussion forums also increase. Social media websites are good platforms for such discussion forums because they allow people to express their views on a particular topic, which in most cases are related to their profession or their hobbies. Therefore, the Internet is a very good medium for getting relevant opinions of people who are related to your profession and your industry. However, the discussion forums should not only be an opportunity for expressing thoughts, but they should also be a venue where you can get the required feedback and active suggestions from people who are involved in different fields. This will help you improve your services or products and make them better.
Another type of social media networking is consumer review networks. The reason why consumers are the most active users of these kinds of networks is because they are the ones who use the products or services that you are going to sell or market. They are the ones who will tell others about your products. Therefore, when you are thinking of using consumer review networks to spread your message, you should ask them what kinds of things they are looking for in your products. They will tell you more about it and hence you can launch your products with great confidence. Most of the time, the people who are commenting on consumer review networks are real consumers who have bought similar products before.
Another social media networking that is gaining a lot of popularity is social media sharing. In the case of social media sharing, one user will take another user’s post and share it on their own social media page. This means that other users will see their comments and they will be able to share what they have seen with their friends. There are a lot of popular examples of social media sharing. You will find Facebook, Twitter, MySpace among the most popular ones.
One more kind of social media networking is the interest-based networks. Unlike the sharing economy networks, the interest-based networks will allow users to search for topics based on their interest. For instance, if you are into pet lovers and you want to know more about pet care, you can do a search on the interest-based social networks to get all the related information and posts that you need. You will then be able to interact with other pet lovers and get new ideas as well as sharing what you already know.
