What's cool about social media?

As a millennial, I can easily recognize the effects of social media. Society has become fascinated with Facebook, Twitter, blogs, e-mails and other social media sites. These captivating, interactive sites have changed the way people communicate. Instead of communicating face-to-face, we rely on communicating through instant messages and e-mailing. Instead of using traditional media, such as newspapers and radio, we receive news from online. As the way we communicate changes, society tries to identify who are the new influencers of social media.

Social media are powered by their users. These users possess traits and characteristics that can be placed into one of the six categories of TechnologicProfiling. According to mediasocial.org, these categories include observers, joiners, producers, commentators, inactives and gatherers. Observers are people who read articles and blog entries, watch videos and listen to music that is produced by others. Joiners are people who join social media sites. Producers are people who create their own content through social media. Commentators are people who react or comment on social content. Inactives are people who are nonparticipants in any forms of social media. Gatherers are people who collect URLs and tags. Gatherers are influential to social sites such as Delicious.com.

Delicious is cool because this site is a social bookmarking site that allows users to share, collect and discover bookmarks from one location. It is important for public relations practitioners to understand social media because it is very prominent today. Public relations practitioners must be able to identify the importance of social media and apply it to communication tactics for public relations events and campaigns.