Social Media
The use of social media and
online networks to promote
both businesses and ourselves
as individuals is still growing
increasingly fast. In business
social media is an umbrella term
for the targeted, measurable
and interactive marketing of
products or services using
digital technologies to reach
and convert customers. Key
objectives for businesses
investing in social media
are often to promote brand
awareness, build preference,
increase web traffic and
ultimately increase sales
through various digital
marketing techniques.
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History of social media:
Technology started its dramatic change in
the 20th Century. From the 1940s when the
first computers were invented, scientists
and engineers began to discover ways to
create basic social networking platforms
between them, this then created the
Internet which was fully commercialised in
1995. The first recognizable social media
platform came out in 1997, the site was
called Six Degrees, it allowed users to
create a personalised profile and make
friends with other users. Blogging was then
discovered in 1999 and this is when social
media began to explode in popularity.
Social networking platforms like MySpace,
Bebo and LinkedIn gained distinction in the
early 2000s, further on, networks such as
Photobucket and Flickr enabled the first
online photo sharing experience. YouTube
came out in 2005, creating an entirely new
way for people to communicate and share
with each other across great distances via
video and commenting.
Facebook now with 1.44 billion active
users and Twitter now with 332 million