Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:
- Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
- User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.
- Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
- Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.
Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are someone with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising.
Twitter, rebranding to X since July 2023, is an online social media and social networking service operated by the American company X Corp., the successor of Twitter, Inc. On Twitter, registered users can post text, images and videos. Users can post (tweet); like, repost, quote or comment on posts; and direct message other registered users. Users interact with Twitter through browser or mobile frontend software, or programmatically via its application programming interfaces (APIs).
Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers. Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone."
The terms internet tribe or digital tribe are used as slang terms for unofficial online communities or organizations of people who share a common interest, and who are usually loosely affiliated with each other through social media or other Internet routes. The term is related to "tribe", which traditionally refers to people closely associated in both geography and genealogy. Nowadays, it looks more like a virtual community or a personal network and it is often called global digital tribe. Most anthropologists agree that a tribe is a (small) society that practices its own customs and culture, and that these define the tribe. The tribes are divided into clans, with their own customs and cultural values that differentiate them from activities that occur in 'real life' contexts. People feel more inclined to share and defend their ideas on social networks than they would face to face.
Klout was a website and mobile app that used social media analytics to rate its users according to online social influence via the "Klout Score", which was a numerical value between 1 and 100. In determining the user score, Klout measured the size of a user's social media network and correlated the content created to measure how other users interact with that content. Klout launched in 2008.
Facebook is a social networking service that has been gradually replacing traditional media channels since 2010. Facebook has limited moderation of the content posted to its site. Because the site indiscriminately displays material publicly posted by users, Facebook can, in effect, threaten oppressive governments. Facebook can simultaneously propagate fake news, hate speech, and misinformation, thereby undermining the credibility of online platforms and social media.
NASA has hosted many events for its social media enthusiasts called NASA Socials beginning in 2009. These events are targeted at the social media followers of NASA through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, YouTube and more. They provide guests with VIP access to NASA facilities and speakers with the goal of leveraging participants' social networks to further the outreach requirements of NASA as laid out in the National Aeronautics and Space Act. NASA re-branded these events as "Socials" in March 2012 as it expanded participation to services beyond just Twitter.
Instagram, LLC is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location — via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.
A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolation that can result from personalized searches. Personalized searches utilize website algorithms to selectively curate search results based on information about the user, such as their location, past click-behavior, and search history. Consequently, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles, resulting in a limited and customized view of the world. The choices made by these algorithms are only sometimes transparent. Prime examples include Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news-stream.
Barack Obama won the 2008 United States presidential election on November 4, 2008. During campaign, by using social media and mobilizing the general public online, Obama was able to raise awareness and financial support of his campaign through the use of over 15 social networking sites.
Twitter usage by public figures includes the posting and content-sharing by celebrity and politician users on Twitter.
Spring.me was a social networking service. Until a rebranding in 2013, it was known as Formspring, a question-and-answer-based social network launched in 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack.
Ghost followers, also referred to as ghosts and ghost accounts or lurkers, are users on social media platforms who remain inactive or do not engage in activity. They register on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. These users follow active members, but do not partake in liking, commenting, messaging, and posting. These accounts may be created by people or by social bots.
A social bot, or also described as a social AI or social algorithm, is a software agent that communicates autonomously on social media. The messages it distributes can be simple and operate in groups and various configurations with partial human control (hybrid) via algorithm. Social bots can also use artificial intelligence and machine learning to express messages in more natural human dialogue.
The social influence bias is an asymmetric herding effect on online social media platforms which makes users overcompensate for negative ratings but amplify positive ones. Positive social influence can accumulate and result in a rating bubble, while negative social influence is neutralized by crowd correction. This phenomenon was first described in a paper written by Lev Muchnik, Sinan Aral and Sean J. Taylor in 2014, then the question was revisited by Cicognani et al., whose experiment reinforced Munchnik's and his co-authors' results.
Algorithmic radicalization is the concept that algorithms on popular social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook drive users toward progressively more extreme content over time, leading to them developing radicalized extremist political views. Algorithms record user interactions, from likes/dislikes to amount of time spent on posts, to generate endless media aimed to keep users engaged. Through echo chamber channels, the consumer is driven to be more polarized through preferences in media and self-confirmation.
