What is Social Media

 

Social media refers to methods of communication where individuals produce, share, and/or exchange knowledge and concepts in online groups and networks. The primary accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube are managed by the Office of Communications and Marketing.

                                                                 Figure01: Social Media

For schools, departments, and offices wishing to establish or maintain an existing social media presence, we provide a variety of tools, including individualized consultations where we review social media goals and strategy and provide insights and ideas. You must fill out the Account Request Form before opening any social media accounts. If your school has any rules or branding requirements, be sure to ask the communications office about them. (Appadurai, A. 1996)

History of social media

In order to control a phenomenon, it is crucial to understand its history. Social media initially strikes one as new. However, a thorough analysis enables the user to identify the Social Media's genesis.

1971: Email

The question of whether email qualifies as social media is still up for dispute. Email is not often regarded as a social media because social media is a collective mechanism, but email is a distribution mechanism, and mass communication differs from mass collaboration. However, if we use the straightforward definition that "social media is discussions that happen online," then Email most definitely counts.

Despite the ongoing discussion, it is indisputable that the invention of email signaled the start of the later, far more collaborative social media.

In late 1971, computer engineer Ray Tomlinson created the first internet-based email service. When the US Defense Department engaged Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in 1968 to create the original Internet, Ray Tomlinson worked there as a computer engineer. Late in 1971, these initial signals were sent. Early in 1972, TENEX's next update was released, and it contained a network mail-capable version of SNDMSG. The CPYNET protocol was quickly abandoned. Utilizing a genuine file transfer protocol that has particular mail handling capabilities. Several other generic mail protocols were later created.

1979: Usenet

A global distributed Internet discussion system is called Usenet. It evolved from the corresponding general-purpose UUCP design.

This was started in 1980 by graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis from Duke University. To share categorized communications, they modified the idea of email. One or more categories allowed users to read and post messages.

Newsgroups were the name given to these groups. Usenet was established out of necessity. In their university, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis attempted to replace the outdated BBB-style announcement system that had recently undergone software upgrades.

Type announcement system that their university's most recent software update rendered obsolete. Usenet operated on a dynamic network of servers that held and relayed messages to one another in the form of news feeds. This is distinct from a BBS or web forum that is run by a dedicated administrator on a central server. Users can read and post messages on a local server run by their own Internet service provider, institution, or place of employment.

LISTSERV, 1984

LISTSERV expanded the use of email communication and demonstrated itself as a successful method of instantly connecting with a huge number of individuals.

Email lists were manually managed before LISTSERV. To be added to or removed from the list, a person would need to write to the administrator who oversees it. The length of this process increased as discussion lists gained popularity.

Engineering student Eric Thomson made an effort to automate the process of managing email lists. LISTSERV, an email list management application created by Eric Thomson, quickly gained popularity.

LISTSERV's launch increased the functionality of emailing. LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software program that allowed users to send one email to a group of recipients.

Following the introduction of LISTSERV in 1986, a number of additional list administration programs, including Lyris ListManager in 1997, Sympa in 1997, and GNU Mailman in 1998, were created.LISTSERV was offered as freeware from 1986 until 1993. It has since become a commercial product created by LSoft, a business established in 1994 by Eric Thomas, the author of LISTSERV.

1988: IRC

The experience was enhanced by the 1988 introduction of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC is a chat application. This was originally intended for group chats in discussion forums, but it also supported chat, data transfers, and one-on-one messaging. More than 500,000 users may be serviced at once by the top 100 IRC networks as of May 2009, while hundreds of thousands of channels—the vast majority of which are mostly empty—operated on around 1,500 servers throughout the world.

IRC was developed by Jarkko Oikarinen in August 1988 to take the place of MUT (MultiUser Talk) on the Finnish BBS OuluBox. The Bitnet Relay chat system served as an inspiration for Oikarinen. While employed as a Sun Server administrator at the University of Oulu's Department of Information Processing Science, Jarkko Oikarinen began developing a communications program in his spare time. He was successful in his attempt to integrate USENET News-style platforms into their BBS system OuluBox's regular real-time talks.

1991: Personal websites, Discussion groups, chat

Numerous personal websites, chat groups, and discussion forums also gained popularity as a result of IRC's success. Internet access was not totally available to the general public during the start of the 1990s. When private internet service providers (ISPs) started operating in the US in 1994 or 1995, the situation altered. Millions of home users have the opportunity to experience it as a result. Other than the data consumption fees paid to the internet service providers, the content was completely free, which contributed to the initial euphoria. By today's standards, early internet users were incredibly opinionated and vociferous. People were ecstatic at the prospect of expressing their ideas and frequently overexpressed themselves.

1995: Social Networking site classmate.com 

In 1995, Randy Conrads launched Classmates.com. In 2008, Classmates ranked third among social networking sites for unique monthly visitors (U.S. home and work). This social networking platform's goal is to help its users locate friends and acquaintances from all stages of their lives, including kindergarten, elementary school, high school, college, the workplace, and the US military. There are almost 50 million users of Classmates.com.

1998-2004 Blogs, Podcast, Wikis 

Online diaries gave rise to the modern blog. One of the first known bloggers was Justin Hall, who started his personal blog in 1994.

The other well-known blogs are Wearable Wireless Webcam and Scripting News by Dave Winer. In 1994, Wearable Wireless Webcam pioneered a novel method of live transmission of text, video, and images via a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a website. Sousveillance is the term used to describe the practice of semi-automated blogging that incorporates live video together with text. These records were regarded as valid legal evidence as well.

Early blogs were nothing more than updates on popular websites. The publication process, however, became practical for a much larger, less technical population with the development of technologies to simplify the generation and maintenance of Web articles uploaded in reverse chronological order. In the end, this led to the distinctive class of online publishing that generates the blogs we are familiar with today.

2005 and beyond Web2.0 applications and user generated content took over during this time period

Web applications that enable interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the Internet are frequently referred to as "Web 2.0." In contrast to websites where users (consumers) are restricted to the passive viewing of content that was created for them, Web 2.0 sites give their users the freedom to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community. Social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video-sharing websites, hosted services, online apps, mashups, and folksonomies are a few examples of Web 2.0.

(History of social media,2015)

The history of social media demonstrates how the entire phenomena was based on the strength of the mass. The technological innovation was less about a breakthrough and more about how one technology was paired with another to harness the power of social organizations. Email was merely a small-scale innovation of a tool that already allowed users to leave messages on their own computers. The potential audience grew when that was coupled with the file transfer program via ARPANET, which ultimately led to a disruptive invention.

Like in the past, the effectiveness of social media depends on how well digital technologies are matched with the objectives of the business and the needs of the intended audience. (Thorpe, I. 2011)

Key Principles For Social Media Managers

•       Social media is about dialogues, community, engaging with the audience, and establishing  relationships.  It is more than just a broadcast medium or a tool for advertising and sales.
•         Genuineness, candor, and open communication are essential.
•         You can respond to what people are saying about you on social media in addition to hearing what they are saying. First, listen, and then speak.
•         Be enticing, beneficial, pertinent, and entertaining. Don't be scared to attempt new things, but make sure they make sense before you start.

Frequently used social media platforms and tools

•         Blogs: a forum for informal conversations and debates about a particular subject or viewpoint.
•        Facebook is the biggest social network in the world, with more than 1.55 billion active users per month (as of the third quarter of 2015). Users set up personal profiles, add friends, and communicate via messages and status updates. Facebook users can "like" the pages that brands create.
•         Twitter: A social networking and microblogging service that enables people and organizations to communicate by exchanging brief status updates (140 character limit).
•         Websites for hosting and viewing videos include YouTube and Vimeo.
•         Flickr is a website and online community that hosts images and videos. On Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites, photos can be shared.
•        Instagram: A free picture and video sharing program that enables users to edit their images with digital filters, frames, and effects before sharing them on a number of social networking platforms.
•         LinkedIn is a platform where groups of professionals with related fields of expertise can communicate and share information.

References

(2022).  Marketing and branding social-media overview [online] Available from  https://communications.tufts.edu. [Accessed on 7th November 2022]

Appadurai, A. (1996), Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Bajarin, B. (2011) Could What Happened to My Space Happen to Facebook?  [Online] Available from  http://techland.time.com/2011/07/15/could-what-happened-to-myspace-happen-to-facebook/   [Accessed on 7th November 2022]

Thorpe, I. (2011) 8 Uses for social media in aid work [Online] Available from http://kmonadollaraday.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/8-uses-for-social-media-in-aid-work/         [Accessed on 7th November 2022]

(2015). History of social media [Online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsix3bi0jU [Accessed on 7th November 2022]