“Social media uses group; audience wisdom; it is seldom completely wrong. In fact, most of the time it is not reasonably accurate, and therefore it is a measurable and traceable reference point for the acceptance and performance of your product or service.” Dave Evans, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, 2008
Social media – what is it? And why do I need to know this?
There is a lot of talk these days about social media and it seems like something we should ignore and leave it to the kids but from a marketing perspective we might miss out on a big opportunity and let’s face it – these kids one day will be the ones buying our products.
Social media is based on interactions between people using technology as a channel and can take many different forms Chatroulette, including blogs, microblogging, discussion forums, wikis, podcasts, ratings, and bookmarks.
Technologies include sharing photos, music, vlogs, wall posts, email, instant messaging, and crowdsourcing to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated across social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Social media has been promoted as offering a new direction in marketing by allowing businesses to talk to consumers, rather than them. But what does it all mean? Below is a summary of the language used in social media and brief definitions to help you make a head or a tail of it all.
Social Media Glossary
Blogs are a type of website with regular entries. Many blogs provide comments or news on a particular topic; Others work as more personal diaries. Readers’ ability to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
Bookmarking is the process of saving a favorite website to your computer. By saving a website, you can easily access it again and again through a menu in your web browser. Alternatively, you can use a site like delicious to save it online so that others can also access your bookmarks. You can also tag and rate sites that others may find useful.
Outsourcing is doing a task traditionally performed by one person and outsourcing it to a group of people or a community in the form of an open call over the Internet.
Forums are an online discussion group. Forums attract people with similar interests and by participating in a group can develop social ties.
Email is a medium for exchanging digital messages and most businesses and families have email addresses – which are good for direct mail marketing.
Facebook is a global social networking site. Besides tracking friends, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, or region. A January 2009 study ranked Facebook as the most used social network which currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide.
File sharing is the online practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer software, multimedia (audio or video), documents, or electronic books.
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on a written text.
LinkedIn is a professional network service, and as of July 2009 [update], it had over 43 million registered users, spread across 170 industries. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to keep a list of contact details of people they know and trust in the business. This list of connections can then be used in several ways:
They can be used to get an introduction about someone that the person would like to know through a trusted and mutual contact Omegle.
It can then be used to find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by someone in an individual’s network.
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their contacts they can provide.
Microblogging is smaller in size than traditional blogging. A single entry can consist of a single sentence, a fragment, an image, or a short ten-second video. Users microblog about any particular topic and are a great way to share news about a company’s products and services.
Micro Blogging allows users to send and publish brief text or micromedia updates such as images or audio clips, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group that the user can choose. These messages can be sent through a variety of means, including text messages, instant messaging, email, digital voice, or the web.
Podcasts are a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released as episodes and downloaded through web sharing. The method of delivery is what sets podcasts apart from other methods of accessing media files. New files can be downloaded and stored locally on the user’s computer or other device for offline use when they wish.
Rating sites are websites designed for users to vote or rate people or content.