“Social media uses the collective; the wisdom of the crowd; it’s rarely completely wrong. In fact, most of the time, it’s more than reasonably accurate, and therefore a point of measurable and trackable feedback regarding to the acceptance and performance of your product or service”. Dave Evans, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, 2008
Social Networks – What is it? And why do I need to know?
There’s a lot of talk these days about social media and it seems like something we should ignore and leave to kids, but from a marketing perspective we could be missing out on a huge opportunity and let’s face it these kids will one day be the chosen ones. buying our products.
Social networks depend on interactions between people using technology as a conduit and can take many different forms, including blogs and microblogs, discussion forums, wikis, podcasts, ratings, and bookmarks.
Technologies include image and music sharing, vlogging, wall posting, email, instant messaging, and crowdsourcing, to name a few. Many of these social networking services can be integrated through social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Social media has been touted as presenting a new direction for marketing by allowing businesses to talk to consumers, rather than at them. But what does all that mean? Below is a synopsis of the language used in social networks and brief definitions to help you understand everything.
Social media glossary
Blogs are a type of website with regular entries. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular topic; others function as a more personal diary. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
Bookmarking is the act of saving a bookmarked 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 others can access your bookmarks as well. You can also tag and rate sites that others may find useful.
Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a task traditionally done by one and outsourcing it to a group of people or a community in the form of an online open call.
Forums are an online discussion group. Forums attract people with similar interests and by participating in a group you can cultivate social bonds.
Email is a method of exchanging digital messages and most businesses and homes have email addresses, which is good for direct mail marketing.
Facebook is a global social networking website. In addition to keeping track of friends, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, or region. A January 2009 study ranked Facebook as the most used social network with 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 programs, multimedia (audio, video), documents, or electronic books.
Instant Messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text.
LinkedIn is a professional networking service and since July 2009[update], had more than 43 million registered users, spanning 170 industries. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust to do business with. This netlist can be used in several ways:
It can be used to get an introduction to someone a person wants to meet through a trusted mutual contact.
It can then be used to find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s network.
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and find out which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
Microblogs are smaller in size than the traditional blog. A single entry can consist of a single sentence or snippet or an image or a short ten second video. Users write microblogs on any topic and they are a great way to share news about a company’s products and services.
Micro Blogging allows users to send short text updates or micromedia, such as photos or audio clips, and post them for viewing either by anyone or by a restricted group of the user’s choosing. These messages can be sent by a variety of means, including text messages, instant messages, email, digital audio, or the web.
Podcasts are a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are published sporadically and downloaded via web syndication. The mode of delivery is what differentiates podcasts from other ways of accessing media files. New files can be downloaded and stored locally on the user’s computer or other device for offline use at any time.
Rating sites are websites designed for users to vote or rate people or content. The challenge is having highly rated content to drive positive traffic.
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Add a webcam and you can see and talk to someone who could be next door or anywhere in the world.
Social networking services focus on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social networking services are web-based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as email and instant messaging services.
Social networks have fostered new ways of communicating and sharing information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people. Popular sites are Facebook widely used around the world; MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most used in North America right now.
Tagging a website is a way of assigning keywords to a website, making it easier for users to learn about the content of a website.
Text messaging is the exchange of short written messages between mobile phones. The term most often refers to messages sent using the Short Message Service (SMS). Individual messages are called “text messages” or “texts”. The most common application of the service is person-to-person messaging, but text messages are also used to interact with automated systems, such as ordering mobile phone products and services or entering contests. Advertisers and service providers use text messages to notify mobile phone users of promotions, payment due dates, and other notifications that were previously sent by mail or left as voice messages. Internet services are available that allow users to send text messages without direct charge to the sender.
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that allows users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters that are displayed on the author’s profile page and sent to the author’s subscribers, known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.
Most Twitter sharing is coming from older adults who may not have used other social sites before Twitter. It first gained popularity in commercial and media settings, resulting in an early adopter profile skewed towards the elderly, but has begun to seep more into the mainstream.
While Twitter doesn’t display advertising, advertisers can target users based on their tweet history.
Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use social media to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing goals through viral processes, similar to how computer viruses travel. The goal for marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify people with high social networking potential (SNPs) and create viral messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability to be passed on, further increasing brand awareness.
Vlog is a way of blogging through video.
Wiki is a website that allows easy creation and editing of any number of interrelated web pages using a simplified text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites like Wikipedia.
YouTube is a user-generated video sharing website. The material may include movie or TV clips, music videos, but much of it consists of amateur content such as video blogs and short original videos. Most of YouTube’s content has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations such as CBS, BBC, UMG and other organizations offer some of their material through the site.
*References: Wikipedia unless otherwise noted