In an article that was recently published by Finextra, we can read that spending on social media is on the increase. While this is an interesting article and I agree with their conclusions, they do not help managers decide on what to spend on social media and how. To avoid imminent Dilbertesque "hey, I've read that we should increase our social media expenditure, make it so." scenarios, I’m providing an overview of how I think social media should be approached.

What are social media?

Perhaps a question everybody knows the answer to, but since I encounter quite a few people that have heard the term but can't name an example of social media, here's a short answer anyway: social media are internet sites and applications where the core functionality revolves around the social interactions between people. The most well-known examples are Facebook and Twitter, but there are many more applications. Often these are targeted at a particular niche, to bring together people with similar interests or to promote collaboration. Wikipedia and Last.fm are examples of social media too. Where web 1.0 was about information, web 2.0 and social media in particular is about people.