It's hard to really state that social media is just a fad, or the biggest shift. The reason is because it is both. Everything starts somewhere, and being a fad is where I feel social media began. People started using it because they thought it was a cool and handy thing to use. They used it because other people they knew were using it. People were expected to be using it. This eventually spread and social media became popular.
From there, companies started to realize the potential that social media could bring to their company. Ordinary people discovered that they could make a career out of these sites they were already using. Social media evolved from something people only used for fun, into a that tool people could use to build a career out of, or even assist their company in furthering the quality of their business. Whether it be from receiving revenue from advertisements, or from connecting with your customers and interacting with them, allowing information to be gathered to improve a company's overall product and/or service. Social media gives them a connection with other people that they didn't have before: a direct link where the company, celebrity or whoever else it cold be, can speak directly to another person, whether it be a fan, consumer, or someone else, using social media as a catalyst.
This is an important step in society today, and I feel that in the coming years this will continue to grow and become an even larger part in our daily lives. We already feel the need to want to share life moments, pictures, websites we found online, documentations of our daily lives, with other people through the internet, and as more possibilities become available, the more this will happen allowing further opportunities to be made.
