What is social media?

Until you've really thought about it you don't realise how much social media influences your life. Most people have at least one social media account (whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat etc.) that they use for many different reasons such as to keep up to date with family or friends, stalk their favourite celebrities or share their personal moments.

Some fun facts to show how much social media has an impact on us:

- Time to reach 50 million users:

• Radio: 38 years
• TV: 13 years
• Internet: 4 years
• Facebook: 100 million users in under 9 months

- Social media is the number 1 online activity

- One in six couples married in 2013 met on a social media site

- 94% of companies used LinkedIn as their primary recruiting tool

- 4 billion pieces of information are shared daily on Facebook

eMarketer has referenced research from Redshift Research that shows:

Approximately one-fifth of leisure travellers worldwide turn to social media platforms for inspiration within different categories of their travel planning including:

As for which social media platform specifically is most used by traveller, Facebook came in first as per the same research.

This blog will explore how the introduction of social media has had an impact on the travel industry. Whether it's from how they advertise or how social media influencers use social media to get free or discounted travel I will try to cover as many avenues as I can.