What is social media? Well, funny you should ask… because it seems that a LOT of people have that same question, and there are a LOT of different answers!
Basically, social media is any communication tool that has user-generated content. It could be a blog (like this one), video sharing or streaming site (like YouTube or UStream), product review site (like Amazon.com), micro-blogging platform (like Twitter), networking site (like Facebook), or forum (to name a few).
Social media is not new – I’ve been on forums, message boards, and in chat rooms for about 15 years now (& I’m pretty young 
). However, it has become more popular within the past few years, and is increasing steadily in popularity. No longer is the Internet full of static websites that do not change; instead, it has become a dynamic entity that changes daily.
So, what does social media look like for YOU?
It looks like your business interacting, connecting and gaining feedback from your current and potential clients.
Social media is the tool that will help a corporation reach the level of the everyday customer. No longer will this big corporation have a stuffy, impersonal website…. now they have a blog, where customers can ask questions and receive responses. They interact on Twitter, drawing feedback and building excitement for their brand.
Social media is invaluable to the small business owner, who wants to get his company noticed and make a name for himself. No longer will
this business owner place an ad in the phonebook… now they have a Facebook fan page, which they use to find and interact with the local community. They use FourSquare to build a loyal customer base that grows with each Special Offer they give.
Social media is where your customers are!
At the time I’m writing this, there are over 500 million users on Facebook, 190 million users on Twitter, and over 70 million profiles on LinkedIn. There are 65 million Tweets going out per day. People are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. FourSquare, which was founded in 2009, now has over 2 million users and is gaining in popularity. In fact, China recently blocked FourSquare access in their country due to too many people “checking in”.
So, where are you? Are you utilizing social media? Are you reaching all the potential customers out there?
In the next article, we will be talking about the different types of social media. If you feel overwhelmed with all of the platforms out there, this article will help you to narrow down which ones YOUR business needs!