SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA, WHAT DIFFERENCE?

Often, the terms "social media" and "social networks"  are used indistinctly to describe the various sites and multiple social features of the web. But this confusion often leads to detrimental approximations: how to define a legible and sustainable strategy of Inbound Marketing without precisely controlling the vocabulary used?

Distinguish social media and social networks

Under the term social media are gathered different sites and social features of the web. These allow, among other things, to publish content, such as articles, briefs, photographs, videos, PDF files, to give an opinion or to communicate with other users, to contribute to participative projects, or to aggregate information to restore it afterwards. Social media thus gather a nebula of sites, applications or features related to the development of conversational and social interactions between Internet users, with a more or less strong reciprocity.

A social network is a site whose primary purpose is to put users in contact with each other. According to the social network, the notions of sharing or networking can be put forward. Social networks are only a part (certainly not insignificant) social media, without summarizing: blogs, discussion forums or wikis, for example, belong to social media but differ from social networks. The different types of social networks

Characteristic features of social networks

Social networks, to promote interaction between users, offer a set of features that identify them:

A presentation space that the user appropriates. He specifies his profile, publishes elements that vary from one site to another: editorial publications, photographs, videos, articles, links ...

A search tool to identify members sharing interaction areas (passions, professional life, school curriculum, family ties ...) and expand its networks.

Solutions for sharing and sharing with the community, such as internal messaging, or the ability to comment or like a publication.

Collaborative tools often expand the possibilities of interaction between members of the same social network. Groups allow for example to discuss a common subject, to build a debate, while pages can federate around a project.

From social networks to original economic models

Social networks are very popular, and many sites are trying to exist by adopting an original business model, clearly differentiating. In the current diversity of social networks, we can distinguish two major trends that polarize the majority of social networks:

Social networks of contact  rely on the constitution of circles of knowledge. They offer sharp tools to search for other members and interact directly with them. Facebook, with its many interactive features, falls into this category: a member can, for example, comment on or like the publication of another, identify a person in a photograph or a video, post a message on a friend's wall, send messages and / or use instant messaging to the group ...

Content social networks promote the publication of original content, intended to be shared with the community. To exist in a highly competitive environment, content social networks often adopt an original positioning: Twitter, for example, relied on the publication of short messages, while Pinterest bet on the image rather. The main families of social media

Social media is a heterogeneous collection of sites and applications. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, we can propose a nomenclature by distinguishing different families according to their purposes.

Social media publishing  include blogs and participatory sites such as wikis. They usually affect an extended community of readers.

Social media from art collection brings  together many social content networks. They are intended to offer content intended to be shared by the community.

Social media r éseautage are mostly represented by social contact networks. People who connect to it want to interact directly with other users, and expand their knowledge circles for personal or business purposes.

Social media  discussions include in their ranks discussion forums and instant messengers. Conversations are generally organized around personal affinities or for professional purposes.

As the landscape of social media evolves rapidly, with the explosion of mobile applications and connected objects, this panorama is only indicative , intended to bring you greater readability.

So, is the difference between social media and networks now clearer?