Social media...why bother?

SOCIAL MEDIA

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The term social media is banded around freely, but what does it mean for companies and consumers? Robert Hughes-Penny, investment director at Rathbones, offers his take.

Hands up: who uses social media? The chances are you have you arm in the air – metaphorically at least – right now. The fact is most of us nowadays use social media regulary, be it Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. These sites alone have a combined membership of well in excess of one billion people, but the list could go on. Have you ever heard of Badoo, Vkontakte or Qzone? These sites have, amazingly, all been launched in the past two years and have 147 million, 167 million and 536 million active users respectively. In itself, the rise of these sites goes some way to explain the a...

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