Social media has arguably been the biggest buzz word in the business realm for almost a decade now.

“How do we use it?”

“How do you show ROI?”

“What’s its long-term viability?”

While no one has the concrete answers to these questions, one thing you need to determine the future is to remember its past.

When considering whether or not social media will “last”, Copyblogger makes an interesting claim that social media is not anything new and that you can trace social media clear back to 1971.

Depending on you look at and define “social media”, they may be right.

Social sharing is not a new concept, it has been around for decades. And surprisingly, most online social sharing still happens outside of social networks. (Tweet this)

With that in mind, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, etc. are just new avenues to do what we’ve always wanted to do online — exchange ideas and information.

“Social media” isn’t going away anytime soon; it may change sites or avenues, but our desire to share information to our personal network will never die.

-Lance Brown