The term, “social media” is used widely but it is important to understand what social media is and is not.
For our purposes, we will define social media as:
Social media is any tool, technology or software that allows individuals to share content, opinions, experiences, media, or thoughts. Social media allows users to have a dialogue about the ideas and interact with other users.
How can your company use social media?
Academic papers provide some additional details on the research and theory. Treem and Leonardi (2012) provide an overview of social media through an exploration of affordances, both public and organization; visibility; editability; and finally persistence and association.
This website provides a short video that discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating social media. The presenter emphasizes that while each department may use social media differently; there must be a larger vision on how social media will be used company-wide.