Social Media
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Quick definition
Social media refers to online platforms where people create, share, and interact with content and each other, rather than simply consuming it. It covers everything from photo-sharing apps to video platforms to messaging-based networks.
What is Social Media?
Social media describes digital platforms built around content creation, sharing, and interaction, where users aren’t just an audience but active participants who post, comment, follow, and engage with one another directly. That two-way, user-driven structure is the defining feature: Anyone with an account can publish content and reach an audience, not just licensed broadcasters or publishers.
That marks a sharp break from earlier media. Television, radio, and print were built around a one-way broadcast model, a small number of producers pushing content out to a large, passive audience with no direct way to respond or publish back. Social media flips that structure entirely, turning every user into a potential publisher and collapsing the line between audience and creator.
Types of Social Media Platforms
Social platforms generally fall into a few overlapping categories. Photo and video-sharing platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat) center on visual content and short-form video. Networking platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn) emphasize connections and profiles built around real-world relationships or professional identity.
Video platforms (YouTube) focus on longer-form content and subscriptions. Messaging-based platforms (WhatsApp, Telegram) center on private or group communication rather than public posting. Many platforms now blend several of these functions at once, making the category boundaries increasingly blurry.
How People Use Social Media
People use social media to stay connected with friends and family, follow creators and public figures, discover products and trends, consume entertainment and news, and build or participate in communities around shared interests.
Usage patterns vary widely by platform and generation. Some platforms skew toward passive scrolling and content discovery, others toward active messaging and close personal networks, which is part of why brands rarely run the exact same content strategy across every platform at once.
Social Media and Brands
For brands, social media functions as both a marketing channel and a direct line to customers, a place to build awareness, run paid campaigns, partner with creators, and respond to customer questions or complaints in public view.
It’s also become a primary discovery channel for products, with a large share of consumers reporting they’ve found or researched a product directly through social content, sponsored or organic, rather than through traditional search or advertising alone.
That shift is a big part of why creator and UGC content has become central to brand marketing, rather than a secondary tactic.
Get Content Made for Each Platform
SideShift puts 1M+ creators within reach of your brand. Post a brief, review the creators who apply, and get content that feels native to each platform, all managed in one place, from briefs and content review to performance tracking.
Platform behavior varies a lot, so track results by creator and by asset to see what is working where, then brief more of it.
Frequently asked questions
1. What are examples of social media?
Common examples include Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and X, each built around different content formats and ways of connecting users, from short-form video to professional networking.
Is YouTube considered social media?
Yes. YouTube includes the core features that define social media, user-generated content, comments, subscriptions, and sharing, even though its format leans toward longer-form video compared to platforms built around quick posts.
What is the difference between social media and social networking?
Social networking specifically refers to connecting with other people, friends, colleagues, followers, through profiles and relationships. Social media is the broader category, covering networking but also content creation, sharing, and consumption more generally, not just the connections between users.