How do you define social media?  Is it the application you use?  Is it the process of communicating with customers?  Is it a new type of media?  When surveyed, marketers respond to this question with various responses such as:

• people talking to each other on the internet
• dynamic, casual or informal relationships developed and nurtured between two parties of mutual interest that delivers value through information, products or services
• a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content supporting the development of small and large communities
• an interactive means of maintaining communications with like minded individuals with similar interests providing them meaningful information to do their work and stay current

As you can see, marketers still have a difficult time defining what social media represents to them.  There is clearly an opportunity to help marketers best define social media.  Rather than focus on a single sentence, marketers should define how they interpret consumer interaction, technology and tactics of social media.  Simply, define the framework of your social media marketing plan.  

Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using 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. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social media can be said to have three components;

1. Concept (art, information, or meme).
2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).

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