What is social media?

Regarding social media, we hear voices such as “I use words without understanding” and “I want to use it, but I don’t know what to do, I’m scared”. What is social media that has different characteristics from mass media and conventional Internet services?

I would like to introduce one photo. It is a message board of a subway station taken on the way to work.

According to the free online encyclopedia “Wikipedia,” social media is “a medium designed to spread through social interaction, using scalable information dissemination technology that anyone can participate in.” Specific examples include Internet services such as electronic bulletin boards, blogs , social bookmarks, and customer reviews.

It is true that the Internet is giving great power to social media, but if you focus only on Internet services, you will be swayed as ” Twitter after blogging “. Social media is a medium created by people’s information dissemination. It can be called communication or conversation. It’s not one-sided, but interactive interactions create new connections, values, and unexpected ideas.

Social media is a medium in which information can be shared and disseminated by communicating with an unspecified number of people on the Internet . Facebook and Twitter In addition, such as, the home page you around to this is also the bulletin board on.

Purpose of utilizing social media

How to use social media depends on what purpose it is used for. Talking about “which SNS to use” can only be done after clarifying the purpose. When using social media, first confirm its purpose.

The purposes of using social media (and the goals that can be achieved by using social media) can be broadly divided into the following.

• Awareness expansion
• Branding (cultivating interest)
• Conversion

When has the word social media been used?

If you search on Google, you will find “7,320,000” hits, and you can see that there is a lot of information on the Internet, but if you search for articles on the newspaper website, there are only a dozen.

“Exploding Social Media” written by Tsuruaki Yukawa, a former Jiji Press editorial board member, was published in the spring of 2007, but it did not spread in the Internet world for a while. If the range to be searched by Google’s tool “Google Trends” that understands search trends is set to 2009 or earlier, “The graph of” social media “cannot be generated due to insufficient search volume. ]Is displayed. It wasn’t until 2010 that the number of search results increased. Words walk alone and are consumed (social media may end up in fashion). The same goes for technology and services.

Differences from traditional media

Mass media such as TV was a medium in which the operator sends information to an unspecified number of users . However, social media case, the user by each other to communicate, there is a feature that will spread diffusely information.

However, since an unspecified number of users send information, it is up to the recipient to decide the authenticity and content of the information.

Types of social media

Please see the list of social media types and service examples.

Difference from SNS

SNS is an acronym for “social networking service,” and is a general term for services that enable people to connect with each other via the Internet . Therefore, it can be said that part of social media is SNS.

For example, a blog service that does not have the function of interacting with people and only sends information unilaterally is social media , but not SNS.

On the other hand, even with the same blog service, services such as Ameba Blog , where communication between users is the main axis, can be regarded as SNS.

Social media in web marketing

The widespread use of social media has led to the development of ” social media marketing, ” in which companies carry out promotional and public relations activities .

Conversation example

” The influx from social media is increasing.”

” Social media addiction.”

Summary

How was it so far?

Social media and SNS are often confused, but SNS is part of social media. However, to put it the other way around, the awareness of SNS has increased, and it can be said that the use of SNS will continue to flourish regardless of company or individual.