Social Media 

Social Media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definition; however, there are some common features:

1. Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
2. User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, are the lifeblood of social media.
3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
4. Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.

Definition and Classification

The variety of evolving stand-alone and built-in social media services introduces a challenge of definition.The idea that social media are defined by their ability to bring people together has been seen as too broad a definition, as this would suggest that the telegraph and telephone were also social media – not the technologies scholars are intending to describe.The terminology is unclear, with some referring to social media as social networks.

A 2015 paper^[1] reviewed the prominent literature in the area and identified four commonalities unique to then-current social media services:

1. social media are Web 2.0 Internet-based applications,
2. user-generated content (UGC) is the lifeblood of the social media organism,
3. users create service-specific profiles for the site or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization,
4. social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.

In 2016, Merriam-Webster defined social media as "Forms of electronic communication (such as Web sites) through which people create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, etc."

Facebook – an online social networking site that allows users to create their personal profiles, share photos and videos, and communicate with other users. The term social media is usually used to describe social networking sites such as:

1. Twitter – an internet service that allows users to post "tweets" for their followers to see updates in real-time
2. LinkedIn – a networking website for the business community that allows users to create professional profiles, post resumes, and communicate with other professionals and job-seekers.
3. Pinterest – an online community that allows users to display photos of items found on the web by "pinning" them and sharing ideas with others.
4. Snapchat – an app for mobile devices that allows users to send and share photos of themselves doing their daily activities.

Social media technologies take many different forms including blogs, business networks, enterprise social networks, forums, micro blogs, photo sharing, products/services review, social bookmarking, social gaming, social networks, video sharing, and virtual worlds. The development of social media started off with simple platforms such as six degrees.com. Unlike instant messaging clients such as ICQ and AOL's AIM, or chat clients like IRC, iChat or Chat Television, six degrees.com was the first online business that was created for real people, using their real names. However, the first social networks were short-lived because their users lost interest. The Social Network Revolution has led to the rise of the networking sites. Researchshows that the audience spends 22 percent of their time on social networking sites, thus proving how popular social media platforms have become. This increase is because of the smart phones that are now in the daily lives of most humans.