This section will provide your city with information relative to the use of social media for purposes of communicating with employees, interacting with your community, and making hiring decisions. Before we move into “defining social media”, it is important to note that you should proceed carefully when considering your social media strategy and include your information technology department and legal department in any decisions made about the use of social media in order to ensure technical capability and policy compliance.

Social media is a way to use the internet and applications to communicate with people, groups, and other entities using an interactive process. These communication systems (typically accessed via the web with, computers, tablets and mobile devices) allow people to receive and share information quickly and efficiently for various purposes. Social media is a technology that supports a two-way exchange of communication.

Today, social media is a conglomeration of web based tools, forums, websites and other applications that encourages communication between the users of the social media platforms. Common social media programs are: Facebook, Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Wikipedia, Yammer, YouTube, Snapchat, Xing, Mix, Xanga, Reddit, Yelp, Delicious, Classmates and Wordpress. The social media programs change and evolve with each year, but the concept of interactive web communication is here to stay.