History of Social Media

2.1.1 History of Social Media
According to Atanassova, Iva and Lillian Clark (2015) change in technology has begun
rapidly in 20th Century. After the invention of super computers in 1960, the engineers and the
scientists developed new ways of creating networks between the personal computers and the
outside world.
Agreeing with the fact, Chin et al. (2015) also stated that the Internet including
CompuServe was first developed in the tear 1960 that has primitive form email that were
developed during the that time. By 1970’s, the networking technology has improved a lot and the
users were allowed to communicate to the outside world through virtual newsletter.

It has found that the use of home computers promotes the use of graphics and better sound, and
therefore became the most common in businesses. The use and implications of the social media
has become sophisticated, and implied the use of IRC. It is an application that allowed
interaction of one person to another using the web in efficient manner. Six degree has been the
first site of social media, introduced in 1997. With the help of the site, users are able to upload
their profile pictures and connect with their friends across the world IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
facilitates real-time social networking. In the year 1999, firstly social’s media first blog channel
has been started which further became popular and has been still growing. After the period of
the year 2000, the use of social networking has increased which led to the ease of interaction
with the people. In the year 2003, some of the business-oriented social networking services i.e.
LinkedIn has launched. Furthermore, in the year 2004, some of the popular names or sites
emerged, such as Facebook, Harvard, Dogster, and Mixi evolved. It further led to
manyevolution, of the different sites and media channels and will continuously include re-
launches.
2.1.3.1 Social Networking Sites
Social media site is the online platform used to build social networks or relationships
with others for a particular purpose. These people share their personal interests, activities, and
other aspects. It has found that ‘Facebook’ is one of the popular social media amongst all other
sites and has large number of users of the social network, in millions. Using Facebook, several
users or people connect with their friends and other people around the world. The site does not
only facilitate the personal uses, rather Facebook is used for the marketing purposes. For an
example, the use of Facebook advertising into the marketing strategy, an individual or firm can

increase the number of likes, and drive website clicks by the customers. It provides several posts,
contests, and promotes the post of the people or firms (Tuten & Solomon, 2017).
2.1.3.2 Media Sharing Sites
Media sharing sites or websites refer to the platform that allows one to upload their photos,
videos, which can be accessed from any part of the world. Some of the examples of the media
sharing sites, include Pinterest, Youtube, Vimeo, and Flickr. These sites are easy to share, and
promote especially to the young generations, amongst all media sharing sites, ‘Instagram’. This
is widely used and most popular social media applications, and top-most platform for increasing
the engagement. The number of advertisers on the Instagram has increased over the period of
last six months. Like Facebook, the use of the Instagram is not limited to the personal purposes,
it is also used for the marketing purposes.
2.1.3.3 Blogs
The term blog generally refers to the site, which provides information, published on the wide
network, i.e. World Wide Web. Blogs contain the information in the form of diary entries.
2.1.3.4 Micro-blogs
A unique kind of blogging, and used by the people to make short and frequent posts, is
considered as an online broadcast medium. It allows the users to exchange or post the content
written in short sentences, and individual images and links of the videos. One of the most
popular media sharing site, for an example is Twitter. A text-message website has almost 1.5

million users around the world. It consists of the message as tweets, and also has the SMS
message with micro blogging service. Twitter is considered a valuable social media as it is helps
to create hashtags, for the businesses to increase their customers.
2.1.3.5 Social Bookmarking Sites
To define the social bookmarking or bookmarking sites, it refers to the site that enables
people to store and ensure effective management of the web pages. It allows them saving the
links of the websites and allows for the use in future time. One of the bookmarking sites is
Delicious, and Digg, Scoop, Reddit, and several others.
2.1.3.6 Wikis
A Wiki is a website developed on the basis of knowledge, on which the users
community changes or modifies the content and structure directly, using the web browser
(Staub & Hodel, 2016).
2.1.5 Social Media Marketing
2.1.5.1 Social Media Marketing and Traditional Marketing
Social media marketing refers to the marketing which is used to attract people, or
audience, that is it focuses on people, not the product. Therefore, the social media channels
include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yahoo mail, Youtube, Skype Network and others. These