If you ask a whole bunch of people, “What is social media?”, here’s what you’d get.

1. About.com – Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication
2. Answers.com – The online forms of communicating to the masses, which include blogs, microblogs, social networking sites and podcasts
3. BlackBox Social Media – Social media is any online media platform that provides content for users and also allows users to participate in the creation or development of the content in some way
4. Common Craft – Social media in plain English (video)
5. Daily Blog Tips – Social media are the various forms of user generated content and the collection of websites and applications that enables people to interact and share information online
6. Duct Tape Marketing – Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value
7. Get a Social Boost – Digital word of mouth
8. Health is Social – Social Media is the meeting place between people and technology
9. Integrasco – Social media explained (video)
10. Mahalo – Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content
11. Marta Kagan -What is Social Media (presentation)
12. Michelle Digital – Social media is life online
13. One Zero One – Social Media, by definition, is the collection of strategies, practices and tools for communicating, creating, sharing and discussing news, information and other media online
14. Optimize Your Web Presence – Social media are online venues, such as social networking sites, blogs and wikis that enable people to store and share information called content, such as text, pictures, video and links
15. ProPR – Social media are online communications in which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly between the role of audience and author. To do this, they use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up content and to form communities around shared interests
16. Radian6 – Social media is game changing, not a closed system, not just another media, transparent, more than blogs, decentralized and real-time and measurable
17. Scobleizer – Internet media that has the ability to interact with it in some way
18. Search Engine Land – Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions
19. SEO Zodiac – Social Media is simply people having conversations online
20. Social Media Optimization Services – Social media is people meeting other people
21. Social Media Vision – Simply refers to communication/publication platforms which are generated and sustained by the interpersonal interaction of individuals through the specific medium or tool
22. Telezent – Social media explained visually (presentation)
23. The Financial Brand – Social media isn’t about the media, it’s about being social
24. The Social Election – Social media is people talking to people online
25. Wikipedia – Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques

This is my definition  of social media

Doctor of Content – Social media is content generated by individuals and shared over the internet to coerce, enlighten, and motivate audiences.

As you can see from above there is certainly a wide range of definitions.

What’s is your definition of social media? Leave a comment!

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