AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) touted the enhancements it made to its networks in the first half of 2010, noting it has poured more than $8.2 billion into its wired and wireless networ
It seems that everyone is trying to define social media and how to measure its return on investment? Everywhere on the net people are putting out video’s, presentations, white papers and even books putting their spin on defining social media.
Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot these days, but it can sometimes be difficult to answer the question of what is social media. The term social media is used to describe the use of today's technology to distribute information and encourage people to connect with others who share a common interest. The use of electronic and internet tools allow users to actively participate in sharing information through comments, discussions, reviews and networking via text, graphics, audio and video. While the world once relied on traditional media such as newspapers, television, books and radio, social media has changed the way in which the world receives and views information.
As most of you know, social media was an outcome of the highly-connected world of web 2.0 apps, social platforms and interactive based marketing efforts. Social Media became a buzzword only a few years ago, but it has existed in one form or another for many years before that. In a crux, social media defines the essence of online networking.
Social media is changing our relationship styles in several important ways. First, it’s allowing us to connect with more people more rapidly. Second, it’s easy to overestimate the level of intimacy of our online relationships. Third, it makes us more susceptible to a sort of social media contagion effect, which means you may possibly start adopting behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs from those within our social network. Fourth, social media facilitates comparing ourselves with others, which may have positive or negative effects.
Getting involved in social media can be intimidating. So much so that you might not know where to even begin. There is Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Foursquare, Hi5. There are blogs, forums, wikis, YouTube, and others. It’s not so much what it’s called, but what it represents that counts for everything. This is the democratization of information and the equalization of influence. But, in the end, Social Media is only but a chapter in the evolution of New Media and the pages are slowly turning to the future.
