Social media are:

forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos) ( Merriam-Webster.com, 2021).

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can, in themselves,  be considered a form of ubiquitous learning. Participants can comment, respond, like etc. synchronously and/or asynchronously, thereby building a body of knowledge (of sorts) whereby participants and onlookers alike are potentially learning and modifying views on given topics. In this way, social media are both ubiquitous, and a potential form of unstructured learning.

However, they can also be utilised as a structured teaching/learning tool, whereby educators construct deliberate platforms within them to support formal learning. Participants often feel comfortable within the familiar infrastructure of such online environments, which can thereby offer up a convenient artefact for social learning. There is some evidence of the effectiveness of this. For example, Leelathakul and Chaipah (2013) found that learners who participated in educational social media discussions achieved better grades than those who did not. Similarly, Ansari and Khan (2020) found that

online social media used for collaborative learning had a significant impact on interactivity with peers, teachers and online knowledge sharing behaviour.

Social media can be incorporated into teaching and learning in various ways. At its least formal, tools such as Facebook can be used to form communities (via Facebook groups) to discuss course concepts in a voluntary and fluid manner. More formal approaches can include structured discussion points, reviewed by teachers and peers using careful scaffolds such as rubrics or other detailed criteria/instructions.

Here is an example of how easily social media can be incorporated into a learning program, together with an outline of some advantages in doing so: https://youtu.be/WnJc3vTWmTc

References

Ansari, J.A.N., Khan, N.A. Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learn. Environ. 7, 9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7

N. Leelathakul and K. Chaipah, "Quantitative effects of using facebook as a learning tool on students' performance," The 2013 10th International Joint Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (JCSSE), 2013, pp. 87-92, doi: 10.1109/JCSSE.2013.6567325.

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, “Social media.” Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021.