Before social media, content had to be reviewed by editors and publishers before entering the main stream. Content was vertically distributed, from a small fraternity of curators. Then the internet happened, and social media sprouted, and webcams were invented, and people learned that they could record themselves and post it to Youtube for everyone to watch.
Content went from being vertically distributed, to horizontally distributed. And though there was tons of garbage content that resulted, there was also an emergence of great, quality, unfiltered content. For example, an accountant with a passion for civil war reenactments could start a blog to publish his passion. He could reach an audience from all across the world, and contribute to his community.
It didn't take long for companies to pick up on the effectiveness of social publishing and place emphasis on content marketing. Companies began taking advantage of bloggers and youtubes with large reach, and began implementing user influence. Brands could send products to bloggers for free and get extremely cheap advertising as a result!
Now we see that many bloggers that once blogged as a hobby are using a medium as a full-time career. Social publishing is a great example of 'gift culture', meaning brands and social publishers both benefit from each other.
