1.3 Implications of Social Media

The popularity of this type of applications is partly fuelled by the benefits of social media. According to Melnick, social media has the ability to reach millions of people, engage them, allow them to spend time as a group and be loyal to brands that traditional media—television, newspapers, creative industries—is slowly losing ground on. The speed of the internet in providing “instant gratification” (MacKay, 2011) and the idea of “virality” (Melnick, 2011) are elements that traditional media will never be able to generate.