 What is a social media? Social media is basically any platform that allows people to communicate and exchange with each other and share in some form. It all started back in the dark ages of 2004, early 2000s where we had you know, BBSs which are much older actually and forums where people would exchange information they would meet with people they knew they'd meet with people whom they didn't know They would exchange information with complete strangers who shared a very narrow personal interest and this grew Eventually we got Facebook. We got Twitter. These platforms are much more friendly for non-technical people to use and they've grown in the Usership up to almost a third of humanity now is on these social media platforms What's interesting is out of that Has grown entire new industries that did not exist before There's an entire version of Hollywood in Beijing which is specialized in creating videos just for the internet We have our YouTube influencers. It's changed the pathway to fame It's no longer just going straight through, you know, Disney to become a famous person But you can actually go through YouTube build your following and then Disney will be chasing after you So it's created these new industries created change consumer behavior And it really what is happening right now is it is forcing companies to understand that the way that they relate to their consumers Has entirely changed and that's really where our conversation is going to go Through this course which is talking about how companies need to change and how companies need to engage and interact with social media Which really changes fundamentally in many ways their actual business models