Social Media

The technical definition is:

"a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content"

That's quite wordy and not very useful. An easier way to define it would be to say that it "allows your customers to interact with you, allows your customers to interact with each other and allows realtime communication with all parties across different platforms."

Quite simply, it means that you can directly engage with those people who will either help or hinder your business. It's a powerful marketing tool if done correctly and a powerfully embarrassing one if done badly.

What does this mean in practice?

• You can keep an updated stream of news via Twitter.

• You can create a fan group with Facebook and then directly engage with that group.

• You can target specific demographics from over 400 million users of Facebook for highly granular advertising.

• You can create an informal channel to talk to your customers via Blogger or YouTube.