This is the 2nd part of Social Media 101 Series.

Because of its roots in the inbred human behavior and the recent empowerment made possible the web 2.0 tools and services, Social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

Universal McCann, a division of the Interpublic Group did a global study of how Social Media is challenging traditional media and came up with very interesting findings:

- 83% watch video clips
- 78% read blogs
- 57% of internet users are now members of a social network
- RSS consumption is growing rapidly up from 15% to 39%

And according to Alexa, five of the top 10 global websites are social (YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Facebook, Blogger).

The numbers are incredibly revealing and insightful. People are increasingly migrating to social media platforms and adopting it in an accelerating pace. Social Media is already disrupting known trends and will only continue to rise.

Social media is changing all aspects of our world from branding, marketing and advertising to commerce and product development and technical support by introducing new ways of generating and consuming media online.

No longer it is just about broadcasting your message all over the place; instead people expect companies and corporations to engage with them through social platforms in a person-to-person fashion.

It is here,it is the future, and it is definitely going to affect your business… time to embrace it.