Abstract
Social media has changed not only people's lives but also business's life. The internet has transformed the way companies do their business. Most companies create an entire business function commonly referred to e-business, which is the use of internet and information technology in a company's operations. Social media is not only a communication tool for entertainment. It is also an important part of marketing strategies in firm's business life. Therefore, firms can use social media as a strategic marketing tool to help firms gain a competitive advantage, so social media and social media marketing are gaining importance all over the world, especially from marketers and researchers in order to understand how social media works and to understand its techniques.
TopLiterature Review
There are several differences between social media and social networks (Hartshorn, 2010, Cited in Edosomwan et al., 2011); the differences include semantics, features, functions and the way to use these websites. We can summarize the differences between them as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Differences between social media and social networks
| Social Media | Social Networks |
| Definition: | A media which is primarily used to transmit or share information with a broad audience. | An act of engagement as people with common interests associates together and builds relationships through community. |
| Communication style: | It is simply a system, a communication channel. | It is a two-way communication, where conversations are at the core. |
| The return on investment (ROI): | Difficult to be determined precisely. | ROI is a bit obvious. |
(Data Source: Edosomwan et al., 2011)
Key Terms in this Chapter
YouTube: The world's most popular online video community, where millions of people can discover, watch, and share originally created videos. YouTube was founded in 2005.
Social Networking Services (SNS): A web-based software application that helps users connect and socialize with friends, family members, business partners, or other individuals.
Competitive advantage: An organizational capability to perform in one or many ways that competitors find difficult to reproduce now and in the future.
Tweet: A short, 140-character message delivered on the micro-blogging platform Twitter by those who have set up a free account on the site.
Facebook: A social networking website launched in February 2004. Users of Facebook can create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications, photos, and comments when they update their profile.
Social media: Refers to the wide range of internet-based and mobile service that allow users to participate in online exchanges, contribute user-created content, or join online communities.
Web 2.0: A second generation in the development of the world wide web; imagined as a combination of concepts, trends, and technologies that focus on user collaboration, sharing of user-generated content, and social networking. It is including blogs, wikis, video sharing services, and social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Google+. The term Web 2.0 was introduced by the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.
Twitter: The most famous micro-blogging site on the internet, where people can tweet about the things that interest them, as well as retweet—or tweet again—the tweets of others. Twitter was founded in 2006.
Social Media Marketing (SMM): Means techniques that aim to promote products or spread brand awareness through social networks and its applications; it can also defined as a form of internet marketing that implements various social media networks in order to achieve marketing communication and branding goals.
social networking sites: Facilitate individuals build social relationships and interests among friends and acquaintances (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus+).