Before we can begin to set our goals we have to know what we are talking about, that is, what is social media marketing?  What are the media in social media?  I hope I answer those questions below.

Social media definitions:

“Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform 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.” Wikipedia

Social media is about people sharing opinions and ideas.  These ideas can be expressed in text, video, audio or pictures.

“Social Media refers to activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge and opinions using conversational media.”  Social Media Bible by Lon Safko & David K. Brake (p6)

So there are 3 definitions and the common factors among them are:

• People
• Interaction 
• Sharing

A simple definition would be people interacting with each other through various social media sites for a common purpose.

Social Media Marketing definitions:

“Social media marketing is a term that describes the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.” Wikipedia

Social media marketing – “a process that empowers individuals to promote their website, products or services through online social channels and to communicate with and tap into a much larger community that may not have been available via traditional advertising channels.”  The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web by Tamara Weinberg

Social media marketing then is using social media to market your products or services to members of your social media community.

What are the media in social media?  Let’s put them into categories to make it simpler.  And remember this is not an all inclusive list.  Who knows what new sites will be launched before I get done typing this.

Social Networking:
Facebook
LinkedIn
MySpace
Ning
Bebo

Photo Sharing:
Flickr
Photobucket
Picasa

Video:
YouTube
Viddler
ScreenCast
Hulu
Google Video
12 Seconds

Audio:
iTunes
Podcast.net
Podbean

Microblogging:
Twitter
Plurk
Posterous
FriendFeed
Tumblr

Publishing:
WordPress.org
WordPress.com
Blogger.com
TypePad
Constant Contact
Wikipedia
MovableType

RSS Aggregators:
Atom
FeedBurner
PingShot
FeedDemon
Google Reader
Bloglines

Web 2.0 Sites:                                
Weebly
HubPages
EzineArticles
Scribd
Squidoo
Jimbo
ZoomShare
Spruz
Webnode

Social Bookmarking Sites:
Digg
StumbleUpon
reddit
Technorati
del.icio.us
Propeller
Fark
kaboodle

Those are just a few of the media in social media.  Once we have set our goals we will select from the above sites the ones that will help us best achieve our goals.

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