Social media is online content created by people using highly

accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media
 
is a shift in how people discover, read and share news,

information and content; it supports the human need for

social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast

media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
 
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge

and information, transforming people from content consumers
 
into content producers. Social media has become extremely
 
popular because it allows people to connect in the online world

to form relationships for personal, political and business use.

Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content

(UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social media marketing also known as social influence

marketing is the act of using social influencers, social media

platforms, online communities for marketing, publication

relations and customer service. Common social media

marketing tools include Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook,

Flickr and YouTube.

 In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to a

collective group of web properties whose content is primarily
 
published by users, not direct employees of the property

(e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by
 
non-YouTube employees).

 Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for

generating publicity through social media, online communities

and community websites.

Social media marketing has two important aspects:

(1) Adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us

so that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and

for these services.

(2) Building ways that fans of a brand or company can promote
 
it themselves in multiple online social media venues.

According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet

Advertising Bureau social media council "Social media isn't

just about big networks like Facebook and MySpace, it's about

brands having conversations.

Supporting Salmons claim, Jim Tobin and Lisa Braziel liken
 
rules of social media marketing to rules of etiquette commonly
 
practiced at a cocktail party. In their book, Social Media is a

Cocktail Party, the authors suggest rules of engagement

commonlypracticed at a cocktail party are often the same

or similar rules for engaging others in social media spaces.

The parameters surrounding social media marketing are

arguably elusive today. The trend is still so new many bloggers,
 
public relations, marketing, and social media experts vary in
 
their definition of what social media marketing entails. Nielson

published  suggesting that blogs and social networks make up
 
an emerging social web. The social web includes social media

sites and is a location within which social media marketing

might take place.