Social media is a term that is used  for the activities that integrate technology, social interaction and the construction of words, pictures, video and audio

Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.  In a common person’s language, Social media is people having online conversations.

Social media can take many different forms, which include

• Blogs - Blogger, ExpressionEngine, LiveJournal, Open Diary, Type Pad, Vox, Word Press, Xanga
• Micro blogs - FMyLife, Foursquare, Jaiku, Plurk, Posterous, Twitter, Qaiku, Yammer
• Online Chat – Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
• RSS
• Widgets
• Social Networks- Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, MySpace
• Social Bookmarks – CiteULike, Delicious, Google Reader, StumbleUpon
• Message boards
• Podcasts
• Video sharing sites - sevenload, Viddler, Vimeo, YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe,
• Photo sharing sites - deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa
• Wikis - PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, Wikimedia
• Livecasting: Justin.tv, Livestream, OpenCU, Skype, Stickam, Ustream
• Music and audio sharing: Last.fm, MySpace Music, ReverbNation.com, The Hype Machine
• Presentation sharing: scribd
• Media and entertainment platforms: Cisco Eos
• Virtual worlds: Active Worlds, Forterra Systems, Second Life, The Sims Online
• Game sharing: Kongregate, Miniclip

Why social media is one of the best vehicles of fundraising communication?

• Social networking sites are officially more popular
• 73% of active online users have read a blog
• 83% have watched video clips
• The new communication model is a dialogue and social networking enables dialogue.
• It engages people