What social media is and how to use it?

After reading a lot of different definitions on what social media actually is, I stumbled over one I like in an article by Kaplan and Haenlein from Business Horizons number 53 (2010):
"Social Media is a group of Internet.based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.

In this definition, Web 2.0 is the platform for the evolution of social media, including functionalities like Adobe Flash, RSS and AJAX. User generated content can be regarded the sum of all ways in which people can make use of social media.

The article also contained an interesting classification of social media relying on theories in the field of media richness and social processes. I've outlined a figure below:

Combining this background with level of self-disclosure  and self-presentation, the following classification can be made:

These categories all contain different challenges and opportunities and there are examples of marketing campaigns from all six of them. Some general tips from Kaplan and Haenlein:
about using media 1-5 and about being social 6-10 (examples are provided in parenthesis):

1. Chose Social Media application carefully (US army on Univision to reach Hispanics)
2. Pick the application and make it your own (Fujifilm's social network for photo enthusiasts) 
3. Ensure activity alignment (Chrysler's Jeep when combining Flickr with Myspace and Facebook)
4. Media plan integration (Coca-Cola's soda fountains from Mentos on Youtube into regular media)
5. Access for all (IBM has guidelines for appropriate behavior in Second Life by employees)
6. Be active (Jonathan Swartz of Sun Microsystems replies directly to correspondence received)
7. Be interesting in the eyes of your customer (MyStarbucks allows for customers to submit ideas)
8. Be humble (Boeing didn't allow for comments on it's corporate blog, result: it was perceived as fake)
9. Be unprofessional (like Bill Mariott on his blog about his travels, it helps build credibility)
10. Be honest (SeaWorld tried to rectify misleading information on Wikipedia through PR, this failed!)

If you have the chance, read this article, it's really interesting and well written.