Social Computing: Online Marketing In A Connected World

Social computing, often called social networking or social media, is used to describe the way people share their thoughts, opinions, experiences and insights online using interactive technologies. Social marketing is the way companies tap into this phenomenon to build brand awareness, customer loyalty and sales.

Look no further than internet visionary Dion Hinchcliffe for a great definition of social computing, captured from a post to his Web 2.0 blog in January 2008:

• "Social computing is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology."
• "Social computing is the behavior, supported by the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other."
• "Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs [video logs]"
• "Blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called ‘social software' illustrate ideas from social computing"3.