What is Social Media?

By Richard Martorello, SMC Member

Daniel Nations, a freelance writer and programmer, explained Social Media on About.com Web Trends in the following way:

“The best way to define social media is to break it down.  Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication.”

“Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter.”

“Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too.”

Joseph Thornley, author of the ProPR blog site and CEO of Thornley Fallis and 76design, refers to social media in his plain language definition as:

“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.”

Today’s world of the Internet is not like its early days where one would mouse click through the World Wide Web one hyperlink at a time.  We can do so much more online with recent advances in hardware and software technologies.  Beside the what we may now call the “basics” of electronic mail, website viewing, and search, we can bank, buy and sell products, order tickets and view our favorite newspapers, magazines and television events online.

Our desire to communicate with each other has provided the opportunity to create blogs, vlogs (video blog), social networks, and social photo and video sharing sites.  Social media has given us the chance to self-publish our thoughts to others freely and for profit.
So what is social media?

Maybe the easiest definition of what social media is can best be described by Jacob JS Bornman:
“Any online application or a combination of applications, whereby individuals or groups can interact, for social reasons.”

Learn more about how social media may work for you at Merced College and its new Social Media Club.

References:
– “What is Social Media?”, Daniel Nations, About.com Web Trends, http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-media.htm
– “What is ‘social media?'”, Joseph Thornley, ProPR, http://propr.ca/2008/what-is-social-media/

The views and opinions expressed here are not those of Merced College

Merced Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Marketing Expo

On Friday, February 24, our Social Media Club (SMC) had the opportunity to attend a Marketing Expo that was organized by the Merced Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  Merced College had its own booth and was staffed by members from SMC.  We were there answering questions about social media, our college, and our new Social Media Club on campus.

Our club advisor, Toni Reintke, had the opportunity to speak to the audience who attended the event.  All club members who were present were asked to go to the front of the room and introduce ourselves.  We all looked great up there wearing our SMC t-shirts!

The event was filled with local businesses, some which had an idea of how to use social media to promote their business.  Others were intrigued by the idea and were interested in more information.  All club members were scheduled to attend the event for an hour, but since we all had a great time, most of us stayed until the end.  We were even lucky enough to win a gift basket from a raffle at the end of the night!

SMC would like to thank Toni Reintke, our advisor, for her hard work and dedication that she put toward setting up our first official event.  She was kind enough to set up the booth, gather all the items that were used and handed out during the event, and she created beautiful name tags and t-shirts for all SMC members.  We all had a great time interacting with the participating local businesses and are looking forward to future events!

Merced College Club Rush Week

The newly formed Social Media Club is proud to announce that we will be participating in the Merced College Club Rush Week this coming week (January 23rd – 27th) in the quad area located in front of the Lesher Building.  We will be out there to promote our club and answer any questions anyone may have.  Please come by and say hi.  While you’re there, you can get more information on the Social Media Club.  We look forward to seeing everyone out there checking out the different clubs, including our very own Social Media Club!