Answer to Question 1
Social media can take various forms, including blogs, wikis, forums, and podcasts.
A blog is a Web site on which individuals make regular entries of commentary or descriptions of events. Blogging is the fastest growing medium of personal publishing, individual expression, and opinion on the Internet. Bloggers may upload graphics, video, and other materials. Most blogs are interactivevisitors can leave comments and message each other, facilitating a dynamic Web site on topics of interest. Companies launch blogs to foster discussion, feedback, testimonials, descriptions, videos, and other material related to particular brands.
A wiki is a Web site developed and maintained by a community of users who add informative content on a variety of topics. On a smaller scale, many firms use wikis as a form of collaborative software, allowing employees and customers to interact and enhance group learning. Ultimately the wiki can become a database for creating, browsing, and searching through useful information.
An Internet forum is essentially a site where people hold conversations in the form of posted messages. Typically, the conversation deals with a product, a brand, or some other specific topic. The resulting information is usually archived so buyers can conduct searches on issues that interest them.
For many firms, podcasting is an important part of the marketing mix. Podcasts started out as purely audio files for the iPod and other MP3 players. Their availability in video formats gave firms more flexibility to provide consumers with useful material, such as do-it-yourself guides and product-use instructions. Today, many firms address product problems proactively through podcasts that consumers download. Podcasts can also raise awareness of new products and ways to use existing products in novel ways.
Answer to Question 2
A