How does scholarly research describe Social Media?
Social Media Research
Social Network Marketing in the global environment has grown rapidly. A business that is trying to reach an international audience will need to actively use social media to be successful. Social media has significantly increased customer engagement in the past few years. They key word here is engagement since customers want to feel valued and appreciated this requires communication from the company they are purchasing from. Since we know social media will only continue to grow it is important for companies to understand how to use it to their full potential.
Social media continues to grow and change which means the definition of it does as well. Upon researching several scholarly sites, the easiest and most understandable definition is as follows, “Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information.” (Nations, 2018) Another definition example of social media is “Forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)” (Social Media, 2018) After comparing and contrasting these definitions, the common theme is that social media is a form of web based communication application that allows users to share their lives via photos, posts and messages. Some examples of social media include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat. Each of these social media platforms has the general idea of sharing and creating content for other users or friends and family to see. Social media essentially creates a whole new way of human interaction where face to face communication or phone calls are no longer required. Regardless of the many definitions of social media, there’s one thing we know for sure, it will continue to evolve for the rest of time.
