Social Media Marketing....a revolution

Today Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a in thing. Its a skill which I believe everyone irrespective of their field should possess. It is different from Internet marketing in a way that Internet Marketing is an umbrella and SMM comes under it. SMM is somewhat we do everyday. Its just that we are not aware of its professional way of execution. Today facebook (fb) has around 800 million users and twitter around 25 million. Everybody log on these sites atleast once everyday, gives updates , friend someone, comments on statements, etc. Lets take an example. Your friend has uploaded a video on youtube and shared its link on twitter and Facebook and also blogged about it. You made a comment on it which is also shown on your other friends home pages and your friends did the same thing. So in this way the video moves from one person to innumerable admirers and spreads virally. These activities are part of SMM. Some more examples are creating a fan page, event page on facebook, Linkedin, etc., Social media attracts individuals of all ages. People express their heart here. It is like a platform to hang out with friends in a virtual world. Now it has also become a vital medium of hiring talent. A lot of companies of all sizes have started looking for right candidates through Social media sites like fb, Linkedin, etc. and vice versa. This trend will only going to get more and more popular with the time. However, having said all this, i would also like to flash on a matter of serious concern which is, the authenticity of people and their identities in the virtual world. There is hardly any medium to gauge it. Its difficult to make out who is on the other side of the screen unless that individual reveals his actual identity.