What is social media and why we should use it?

According to Wikipedia "Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers." Why social media? Recently posted on someone's facebook update I read "it is not technology that will replace you but people using it who will." I thought to myself how profoundly true when applied to real estate. Rest assured literally showing real estate in say New York is thankfully by its very nature something not easily outsourced to China no matter how affordable labor becomes overseas however it is our belief people more and more effectively using online social networking are soon going to control not only the conversation but the marketplace. So many milestones on the topography of real estate as we know it from the invention of the window to wall-to-wall carpeting. Time will only tell if social media is more evolution or revolution. Some like myself might argue this trend is as inevitable as it is obvious. Why be connected? Why not connect, reconnect and be connected with all the people we have ever known. The girl we went to kindergarten with, our first kiss, our cousins, our teachers and the guy you met at last night's cocktail party are all potential resources for our lives. To have them and all of their status updates and their contacts at our very fingertips. There to cheer us up, to network with, to inquire of and to share with. Actually we can easily forget as city dwellers our lives used to be much simpler before the industrial revolution. We lived in and are perhaps are wired for living in villages and tribes where everyone knows everyone. Our ancestors did not live in big disconnected concrete jungles. Why the status update? In many ways we are a collection of our actions. Who knows what others will find interesting or relevant? To report you are showing a new listing might be as significant to a client as reporting on the days weather and of course as always an opportunity to connect. In summary to master social media is to understand at it's best social media is about giving. Sharing our time, our knowledge, our lives with others whether they be our friends or potentially even the complete stranger. As one clever 1990s internet marketing campaign once pointed out our best friends were all once strangers. This desire for humans to share and be connected will never be replaced but can be enhanced by its connectivity and efficiency. Robin Greenbaum and Michael Lorber are the founders of Cobroke Nation (www.cobrokenation.com), New York, N.Y.