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Understanding Social Media

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Submitted By danelliott98
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Social Networks
Personal Use
Purpose
This allows for individuals to share private images and videos with your friends along with family, this will allow for you to connect with old school friends that you may not see everyday or could live in a different location than you, this allows for your family and friends to still keep in contact with you and see what activities you’ve been up to.
Business Use
Purpose
Facebook is a great tool for the likes of businesses or public figures, as it allows for them to connect with customers, fans. To hear their thoughts on their work or products. Businesses commonly make Facebook pages, where their customers can follow. The business would post new content, along with provide organizational news, offer deals and introduce products. This is an important marketing tool as they can reach a large number of people with targeted advertising, creating ads specifically for Facebook that are tailored to appear on the pages of specific groups of people they hope to reach.
Examples
Facebook is the most commonly used social media website, it’s a great way to post status of your thoughts or sharing exciting news, of a new job, new car or even the fact you’re getting married. This allows for allow your accepted friends to hear about your news, Facebook allows friends to comment on your photos and status to congratulate you or share their thoughts.
Opportunities Provided to Individuals
There is a wide range of opportunities available for individuals using social media such as Facebook. Examples of this is to chat with long lost friends via Facebooks direct instant messaging service, this allows you to chat with anyone, anywhere in the world, that you may know are may not know in real life. This is great as you can share your opinions with anyone and see what they have to say.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
Due to the increase of use of social networks, this results in individuals being able to meet and talk to new people virtually, anywhere in the world, this allows for people to learn about different cultures and how people in different countries live. This also means that people stay in contact more often and are able to communicate at any time on any day.
Social News
Personal Use
Purpose
An example of Social News would be BuzzFeed, this is an online website which provides news to the public on the hottest stories along with the news innovations in the world we live in today. This allows for people to learn more about what’s happening in the world around them allowing them to become more educated. This website is very popular with teenagers and younger adults, as that’s the websites target audience.
Business Use
Purpose
This is a great way for businesses to get exposure on their new products, as BuzzFeed has a large following, having the opportunity to have their new product featured will allow for the business to earn more sales, as more people will hear about their product, this will then increase their sales earning higher profits. Since Social News sites such as BuzzFeed have a large and loyal following, having their product advertised on this website would encourage more people to take an interest in their product and learn more about your work, which they may not have been interested in if a different use of advertising was selected.
Examples
BuzzFeed is a Global news and entertainment website, which has become very popular in the past years. The site is said to be one of the fastest-growing on the internet, with more than 40 million people a month viewing viral hits such as "50 puppies to help you get through work today" and "The most WTF animal moments".
Opportunities provided to Individuals
BuzzFeed offers the latest interesting stories to the public every day. Therefore this allows for users to hear what’s going on in the world in a fun and interesting way. Users can hear funny, serious or generally interesting facts and stories extremely conveniently, by subscribing to the BuzzFeed website. This furthers the public’s knowledge of the world, which they can then share with friends and family.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
Due to the increase and use of the internet, users are never an arms length away from a computer to tune into their favourite social news sites such as BuzzFeed. This therefore changes the amount of content a user receives in a day. In previous years, to hear social news you would have to purchase a newspaper and scan through to find out news, or even wait for the evening news to be broadcasted.
Wikis
Personal Use
Purpose
Wikipedia is an example of a Wiki, its purpose is to hold information on any topics, to help educate researchers on the topic they’re searching for. The service is an encyclopedia, which contains a lot of information on any topic.
Business Use
Purpose
This is beneficial for a business as the use of Wikis are very commonly used by the public to gain information on any corporations, by having a detailed Wikipedia this will allow for the business to advertise their specialities in an attempt to gain new customers and persuade them to visit their website.
Example
An example of a Wiki service is Wikipedia, this was created back in 2001, this service has become extremely popular, which is attracting 374 million unique visitors monthly as of September 2015[update]. On Wikipedia there are about 70,000 active contributors working on more than 38,000,000 articles in 290 languages.
Opportunities provided to Individuals
Wikipedia allows for users to edit any page or to create new pages if they are knowledgeable in the topic. A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
Wikipedia is free to use and is often accused of destroying economic models, it is perhaps guilty of simply replacing outdated ones. In formal education, teachers, professors and students from 70 countries worldwide have contributed more than 88,000 new articles to Wikipedia; many students have edited or created new Wikipedia articles instead of actual homework reports.
Media Sharing
Personal Use
Purpose
An example of media sharing would be YouTube, this is one of the most popular websites on the internet today. This is a service which allows individuals to upload video footage and share it to the world. There are videos on everything and anything, from tutorials on how to wire socket plugs, game plays, reviews, people giving advice or promotional videos of new facilitates.
Business Use
Businesses see this service as a highly effective free method of advertising, to show the world their service or product instantly. Businesses can pay a fee to have their video posted on the homepage of YouTube, this allows for their video to gain the max amount of views, which in turn will show more people the company’s service they are trying to advertise.
Example
YouTube is a video-sharing website. The service was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, it was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion. YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries. The site allows users to upload, view, rate, share and comment on videos. Available content includes video clips, TV clips, music videos, movie trailers and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Opportunities provided to Individuals
YouTube is an excellent service for individuals to promote themselves. Individuals are able to make video content which they feel passionate about and upload the content to the YouTube website. YouTube has made a lot of their video creators very popular in the eyes of the public, the website has also allowed for talented singers to be signed by famous record deals allowing them to follow their dreams and become pop stars, an example of this would be Justin Bieber.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
Social media has made it easier for bullying this is achieved via the anonymous platforms that are available to them. This has led to serious incidents of cyber bullying involving both children and adults, sometimes with tragic consequences. The problem with these techniques is that they tend to go under the radar to an even greater degree than traditional bullying, which makes it harder to detect and correct.
Micro Blogging
Personal Use
Purpose
This has become very popular for individuals to share their current thoughts or activities. Micro blogging has gave the average person a voice in the world, allowing for individuals to have discussions about any topic from anywhere in the world.
Business Use
Purpose
This has allowed for business to be able to communicate with their customers. By posting a short and quick status which will inform their users if there is any problems with their service such as a server being down, news of a new product or news of a redesigned interface.
Examples
Twitter was created in March 2006. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users posting 340 million tweets a day in 2012. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day.
Opportunities provided to Individuals
Twitter allows for people to be able to express their thoughts and opinions on political or controversial current events. This allows for people to understand different points from people with different opinions than them. Individuals can also follow their favorite celebrities to hear first about their favorite celebrities current whereabouts or their new work.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
A concern with social media could result in a technology addiction, this is when individuals spend more time with their smartphone than interacting with the people around them, this results in a lack in face to face communication which will reduce ability in reading individuals emotions.
Gamification
Personal and Business Use
Purpose
Gamification applies to non game applications and processes, in order to encourage people to adopt them, or to influence how they are used. Gamification works by making technology more engaging, by encouraging users to engage in desired behaviours, by helping to solve .
Examples
An example of Gamification would be Gov.co.uk. this website has adapted over the years. When it was first published it was numerous webpages with hundreds of links, however it has been redesigned to become more user friendly and easier to use. With menus, drop down features and easier to find links along with feedback pages and user forms. Opportunities provided to Individuals
This allows for more people to use these websites, since the websites are easier to use people are more inclined to use them because they are simple to use. People can now find out mass amounts of information at their finger tips.
Identifying changes to social activity that social media has created.
As the webpages are designed in a more user friendly manner this has increased the amount of people willing to go onto these websites to find out information, without having the need to go to a specialist or go to the library and scan through books to find out the information they need. These websites are accessible everywhere and contains everything there is to know. This has gained the users trust.

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