Social Media

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Social media⁺ are the internet and mobile-based tools that facilitate communication in social networks and encourage the sharing of digital content. Traditional forms of media transfer information in one direction - from producer to consumer. With social media, ideas flow in infinite directions. Everyone has the ability to be both producer and consumer in a global community of other producer-consumers.

Social media enable materials (words, pictures, video or audio) to be broadcasted, consumed, appended or re-broadcasted (shared) by individuals within an online community.

Some examples:

A blog post⁺ that has been shared with a community of subscribers
A comment that challenges or illuminates the blogger's original ideas
A tweet sharing the post with members of a Twitter⁺ community
A re-tweet that broadcasts the original information to an even wider network

The most effective forms of social media are those that invite engagement and facilitate sharability - those that spur consumers to action, inspiring them become producers in their own right. That said, participation is the crux aspect of any effective social media practice. There is little benefit to being a benchwarmer in the world of social media.