Social media taps into the wisdom of the group, the wisdom of the audience, and it’s rarely completely wrong. In fact, it’s usually not accurate enough. So it’s a measurable and trackable reference. Point for the acceptance and effectiveness of your product or service. Dave Evans, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, 2008
Social media – what is it? And why should I know?
There’s a lot of talk about social media these days, and it seems like something we should ignore and leave to the kids, but in terms of marketing, we could be missing out on a huge opportunity, and let’s face it – those kids will be the ones buying our products one day.
Social media is based on interaction between people using technology as a channel, and can take many forms from Ome tv, including blogs, microblogging, discussion forums, wikis, podcasts, reviews and bookmarks.
Technologies include photo sharing, music sharing, vlogging, pin board posting, email, instant messaging, crowdsourcing, and more. Many of these social media services can be integrate with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Social media is being toute as a new trend in marketing because it allows businesses to talk to consumers instea of at them. But what does it all mean? Below is a brief description of the language used in social media, as well as brief definitions to help you get your head around it.
Social media glossary
Blogs are a type of website with regular entries. Many blogs contain commentary or news about a particular topic, while others serve as a personal diary. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
Bookmarks allow you to save your favorite pages to your computer. Once you save the page, you can always return to it from your web browser’s menu. Alternatively, you can use a website like delicious to save a website online so that other users can access your bookmarks. You can also mark and rate websites that might be useful to others.
Outsourcing means that a task traditionally performed by one person is given to a group of people or a community in the form of an open bidding process over the Internet.
Forums are online discussion groups.
Forums attract people with similar interests, and social contacts can be made by participating in a group.
Email is a digital messaging medium, and most businesses and families have email addresses that are good for direct mail.
Facebook is a global social network. Users can not only find friends, but also join networks organized by city, workplace, school or region. According to a survey conducted in January 2009, Facebook has become the most used social network worldwide with over 300 million active users.
File sharing is the distribution of or access to information in a digital format, such as computer software, multimedia (audio or video), documents, or e-books.
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on written text.
LinkedIn is a professional networking service.
As of July 2009 [update], there were more than 43 million registered users from 170 industries on the site. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact information for people they know and trust in business. This list of connections can be use in a variety of ways:
It can be used to get an idea of someone a person would like to meet through a trusting and reciprocal Omegle tv contact.
It can then be use to find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by someone in the person’s network.
