Social media as best defined 
according to Wikipedia,
“Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues into dialogues and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use.
In the last 10 years or so, there has been a surge in both the number and popularity of social media sites. Publishing content has become exponentially simpler over the last several years, which has helped skyrocket the use of social media.
This shift in paradigm in the rise of social media consumerism, brings opportunity and responsibility, for businesses. The opportunity lies in growing lasting and scalable relationship with your organization’s client base through social media. You online responsibility also begins to take shape, as your client’s expectation changes. Your clients are conducting conversations relevant to your operations, be it feedback or compliments. It is therefore important to be part of the conversation.
The era of social media is just getting started. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and many others has grown rapidly in the last few years. The need for social media in business will only become stronger over time. The whole world has seen the impact of the
expansion and adoption of social media tactics, and the rising stats speak for themselves.
Your business needs social media
Whether you are running a small, local operation, or heading a global, enterprise-level effort, your customers are online. They are constantly interacting with their friends, colleagues, and your competitors, to search for information, recommendations and entertainment. Your company need to be around to answer, otherwise your competitor will. This may result in your customer going to your competitor.