The A to Z glossary of common social media terms.
A
A-List bloggers: A-List bloggers are the blogging elite with heaps of daily blog posts and zillions of links to their blogs
Above the fold: Refers to the section of a web page that is visible to a visitor without the need to scroll down
Access: The ability to see what you are trying to view eg. You can access a friend’s photo but not their profile
AdSense: Google’s pay-per-click, context-relevant program available to blog and web publishers as a way to create revenue
AdWords: The advertiser program that populates the AdSense program. The advertiser pays Google on a per click basis
Advertising network: Sells ads across multiple publishers in order to optimize ad delivery based on the user rather than context eg. Acknowledge, Rocky, Social Cash, DoubleClick
Affiliate: A partnership site that links to your own site is called an affiliate
Affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing is a partnership between a website owner (affiliate) and a retailer (affiliate merchant) whereby the website owner advertises the retailer on their site and receives a fee for every lead or sale generated
Affiliate network: CPA ads for multiple retailers across multiple publishers. Eg. Affiliate Window, Trade Double
Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content
AJAX: An acronym (Asynchronous Java Script and XML) representing a way to create real-time Web applications
A kismet: Comment spam filter popular with WordPress blogs
Alerts: Tool to get a search engine to tell you whenever a new page is published on the web which includes your specific keyword
Anon blog: A blog site authored by a person or persons who don’t publish their name
API: An acronym (Application Programming Interface) representing a computer system or application allowing for requests to be made of it by other programs and allows for data to be exchanged
App: An app is simply an application that performs a specific function on your computer or handheld device
Archives: Most often an index page, often organizing posts or entries by either category or date
Astroturfing: A fake grass roots push to generate buzz or interest in a product, service, or idea. Often this movement is motivated by a fee or gift to the writer of a post or comment or may be written under a phony pseudonym
Atom: A popular feed format used for syndicating content
Authentication: You are who you say you are
Authorization: You are allowed to perform the action what you are trying to do
Avatar: A graphical image or likeness that replaces a photo of the author of the content on a blog
B
Back channel: Communications are private emails or other messages sent by the facilitator or between individuals during public conferencing. They can have a significant effect on the way that public conversations go
Badge: An image, usually squared and displayed on a blog, which signifies the blogger’s participation in an event, contest, or social movement
Biz Blogs: Blogs that are written by companies and organizations are known as business blogs and are a great way to communicate with your customers, partners and employees
Bliki: A blog that can be edited by readers or an agreed group of collaborators – a combination of a blog and a wiki
Blog: Editorless web publishing tool. Eg. WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type
Blog digest: A blog digest reports on, and summarizes, other related blogs on a daily basis
Blogging: Is the act of writing in one’s blog
Blogosphere: General term for all the blogs on the internet
Blog Post/Entry: Content published on a blog. Entries may include pictures or embedded videos and links URLs for online sources used
Blog storm: A blog storm or blog swarm is when bloggers in the blogosphere write thousands of posts about a subject which then forces the story into the mainstream media
Blogroll: List of recommended blogs
Board reader: An aggregator of message boards and forum discussions
Bookmarking: Is saving the address of a website or item of content, either in your Brower, or on a social bookmarking site like del.icio.us
Bookmarklet: A bookmarklet (or favela) is a “faux” bookmark containing scripting code, usually written in JavaScript, that allows the user to perform a function
Bulletin boards: Were the early vehicles for online collaboration, where users connected with a central computer to post and read email-like messages. They were the electronic equivalent of public notice boards. The term is still used for forums
C
Campaign: An online campaign is a set of coordinated marketing messages, delivered at intervals, with a specific goal, such as raising funds for a cause or candidate or increasing sales of a product
Canvas: The screen area that an application can use to serve content and features within a social network
Categories: Are pre-specified ways to organize content – for example, a set of keywords that you can use but not add to when posting on a site
Cause marketing: Is a business relationship in which a for-profit and a nonprofit form a partnership that results in increased business for the for-profit and a financial return for the nonprofit
Champions: In order to get conversations started in an online community, you need a group of enthusiasts willing and confident to get things moving by posting messages, responding, and helping others
Chat: Is interaction on a web site, with a number of people adding text items one after the other into the same space at (almost) the same time
Civic media: Is any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among its residents
Cloud computing (also called “the cloud”): Refers to the growing phenomenon of users who can access their data from anywhere rather than being tied to a particular machine
Cluster: Groupings of content with similar tags. Eg. Flickr Clusters
Collaboration: Being able to discuss and work with people across boundaries of organization, time and space. Activities like commenting, social bookmarking, chatting and blogging help develop the trust necessary for collaboration
Comments: Blogs may allow readers to add comments under items, and may also provide a feed for comments as well as for main items
Communities (online communities): Are groups of people communicating mainly through the Internet. They may simply have a shared interest to talk about or more formally learn from each other and find solutions. Online communities may use email lists or forums, where content is centralized. Communities may also emerge from conversations around or between bloggers
Community building: Is the process of recruiting potential community or network participants, helping them to find shared interests and goals, use the technology, and develop useful conversations
Compete: Provides web analytics (i.e. unique monthly visitors to the site) and enables people to compare and contrast up to 5 different sites at a time
Connect (Facebook Connect / Friend Connect): The ability for me to bring my friends with me to existing sites, the ability for existing web sites to allow users to login with their Facebook or Google accounts
Content: Is used here to describe text, pictures, video and any other meaningful material that is on the Internet
Content management systems (CMS): Are sometime described as the Swiss Army knives of social media. They are software suites offering the ability to create static web pages, document stores, blog, wikis, and other tools
Context ads: Adverts placed directly inside or next to relevant content or features. Eg. Celebrity ads on Spotted!, FMCG goods as virtual gifts
Conversation: Through blogging, commenting or contributing to forums is the currency of social networking
CPA (Cost Per Action): The publisher is remunerated based on specific actions the user does. Eg. affiliate ads
CPC (Cost Per Click): The publisher is remunerated when the user clicks on an advert link – eg. Google AdWords
CPM (Cost Per Mile (thousand impressions)): The publisher is remunerated every time the user sees the advert. Eg. DoubleClick ads
CPI (Cost Per Install): A specific type of CPA where the action is the installation of a social application
Creative Commons: Is a not-for-profit organization and licensing system that offers creators the ability to fine-tune their copyright, spelling out the ways in which others may use their works
Crowdsourcing: Outsourcing to several competitors (usually individuals) and awarding a prize to the winning entry – eg. 99designs.com
Culture: Social media only works well in a culture of openness, where people are prepared to share
Cyberspace: Has been widely used as a general term for the Internet or World Wide Web
D
Dashboard: The administration area on your blog software that allows you to post, check traffic, upload files, manage comments, etc.
Date-Based Archives: The archives of a blog site, organized by time-stamp. Almost every blog will have some form of time-stamp and many archives are listed along the sidebar. Some list in weekly, but most on a month-by-month basis
Delicious: A social bookmarking site and a property of Yahoo! Allows users to quickly store, organize (by tags) and share favorite web pages. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds of other users and share a page specifically with another user
Digg: Is a popular social news site that lets people discover and share content from anywhere on the Web. Users submit links and stories and the community votes them up or down and comments on them. Users can “dig” stories they like or “bury” others they don’t
Digital inclusion (or e-inclusion): Is an effort to help people who are not online gain access with affordable hardware, software, tech support/information and broadband Internet service, so they can begin to use this technology to improve their lives
Digital story: Is a short personal nonfiction narrative that is composed on a computer, often for publishing online or publishing to a DVD
Do-good networks: Online communities aimed at making the world a better place
Domain Name: The identifying name of an internet site
Dooced: A term associated with someone getting fired for the content written in a blog post or web site (not for the act of writing, but for what was published)
Drupal: Is a free, open-source platform and content management system written in phi. It is often used as a “back end” system that powers community features on many different types of sites, ranging from personal blogs to large corporate and political sites
E
eBook: Is an electronic version of a traditional printed book that can be downloaded from the Internet and read on your computer or handheld device
Ecosystem: A community and their environment functioning as a whole. The blogosphere can be viewed as an ecosystem
Ector: A stand-alone publishing application, allowing users to compose posts offline
Edu blog: A blog site focused on education, be it teacher, administrator, consultant or student
EFF: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world
Embedding: The act of adding code to a website so that a video or photo can be displayed while it’s being hosed at another site. Many users now watch embedded YouTube videos or see Flickr photos on blogs rather than on the original site
Engagement Ad: A display advert that includes interactivity specific to the particular social network. Eg. Your friend John became a fan of British Cycling. Become a fan
Entry: An individual post or article published on a blog. Each of these entries, while appearing in an index, are also web pages unto themselves
Event Blog: A blog specifically launched as a companion to an event
Expression Engine: A robust content management system (CMS)
Eye Rest: Using “gifts” in your posting to give your readers a rest. Includes images, bold text, bullet points, lists, and hyperlinks
F
Facebook: Is the most popular social networking site in the western world, with close to 300 million members. Members’ home page streams can now be seen in a wide range of applications and devices
Face-to-face: Is used to describe people meeting offline
Fair use: Is a doctrine in U.S. law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without obtaining the permission of the copyright holder
Feed: Content served at regular intervals eg. the latest articles from a blog or social actions by your friends
Feed Blitz: An RSS service that makes it easy for those addicted to email
Feed Burner: Ibis a Google tool allowing web sites, blogs and podcasts to “burn” content into a simple way for readers to subscribe (incl. email)
Feed Reader: An aggregator of content, subscribed to by the user, so that specific content or search results arrives in their “reader”
Findability: Refers to being locatable. Though tied closely with Information Architecture on the Web, particularly within one site, findability has also become a popular term in creating a findable, locatable and navigable presence on and across the web and social networking
Flash mob: Is a group of individuals who gather and disperse with little notice for a specific purpose through text messages, social media or viral emails
Flickr: Is the world’s premier photo sharing and hosting site. Its members have uploaded more than 3 billion photos
Folksonomy: Categorization taxonomy agreed by democracy rather than by authority. Eg. del.icio.us
Forums: Are discussion areas on websites, where people can post messages or comment on existing messages asynchronously – that is, independently of time or place
Friend (noun): A person with whom you have a mutually agreed connection
Friend (verb): The act of adding a person to your social graph on a particular social network. Eg. “friend me on Facebook”
Friend List: A user’s personal sub-categorization of friends on a social network eg. Co-workers, Current Friends, Clients, Old Friends
G
Geotagging: Is the process of adding location-based metadata to media such as photos, video or online maps. Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of businesses and services based on location
Groundswell: A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations
Groups: Are collections of individuals with some sense of unity through their activities, interests or values
H
Halo scan: A free, easy to use commenting, ratings and trackback service for weblogs and websites, allowing visitors to leave instant feedback. Popular on Blogger sites
Hashtag: Is a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. Similar to tags on Flickr, you add them in-line to your Twitter posts by prefixing a word with a hash symbol (or number sign). Twitter users often use a hashtag like #followfriday to aggregate, organize and discover relevant posts
Hat Tip: A hat tip is a public acknowledgment to someone (or a website) for bringing something to the blogger’s attention
Hits: A measurement used in Web analytics, a “hit” is often defined as any request for a file from a Web server
Hosting: A blog, video or podcast needs a hosting service before it can appear online
Hyperlink: A navigational reference to another document or page on the World Wide Web
Hyper-local community: A group of people from a specific location who interact in online communities and use social media tools
I
Identity: The general term for ensuring the correct representation of a particular individual on a web application
Influencer: A person specialized in a specific subject matter and highly recognized in an online community that has the ability to sway others’ thoughts
Instant messaging (IM): Is chat with one other person. using an IM tool like AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Live Messenger or Yahoo Messene
Internet newsroom: Is an area of a corporate website that communicates corporate messages and makes content available to the news media and the public
J
Joining up: Is a big opportunity – and challenge – in the world of social media and networking. On the one hand links, tags and feeds – together with the spirit of openness – means content in different places can be brought together (aggregated). On the other hand, the move from groups to networks, and forums to blogs, means that content is spread around and there is seldom a one-stop-shop
K
L
Linecasting: Is an around-the-clock broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media
Livestreaming: Is the practice of collecting an online user’s disjointed online presence in one central location or site. Livestreaming services bring photos, videos, bookmarks, microblog posts and blog posts from a single user into one place
Links : Are the highlighted text or images that, when clicked, jump you from one web page or item of content to another. Bloggers use links a lot when writing, to reference their own or other content. Linking is another aspect of sharing, by which you offer content that may be linked, and acknowledge the value of other’s people’s contributions by linking to them. It is part of being open and generous
Listening: In the blogosphere is the art of skimming feeds to see what topics are bubbling up, and also setting up searches that monitor when you or your organization is mentioned
Lurker: Someone who reads social media content but rarely contributors. The usual ratio is 1% creator, 10% commenter and 89% lurker
M
Mapping: Networks enables you see who are the main connecting people. To do that you may need to ask people who they communicate with most frequently. If you want to grow an online community or network from an existing “real world” network, it will be important that the key people in the network overlap with the champions for online networking
Mashup: Combining two or more web services to create something new. Eg. combining Twitter posts with Google maps to create Twitter Vision
Meme: In the context of web logs / blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites it’s some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on
Message Boards: An online discussion site; people looking to discuss particular issues or needing support post threads (a message) on the forum or message board in hopes to gain more information or start a conversation
Metadata: Refers to information — including titles, descriptions, tags and captions — that describes a media item such as a video, photo or blog post
Microblogging: Is the act of broadcasting short messages to other subscribers of a Web service. On Twitter, entries are limited to 140 characters, and applications like Pluck and Haiku take a similar approach with sharing bite-size media
Micro-philanthropy: Donating in small amounts ($1, $5, $10, $20)
Moblogging: Posting to your blog via your mobile phone
Monetization: The approach to making money from your online property usually by display advertising, subscription, affiliate links, or context advertising (eg. sponsored ads on search)
Movable Type: Is a publishing platform a served web publishing platform (it sits on your server) created by SixApart
Multimedia: Media and content in different forms such as videos, pictures, etc. Examples include YouTube and Flickr
My Blog Log: A Yahoo-owned community and social networking site that tracks traffic and visits to member sites
Myspace: An online social network. Myspace caters to artists and bands, who enjoy the flexibility of creating an individual “look” for their page. Myspace allows users to “friend” each other and create groups
N
Navigation (Nave): A menu of links or buttons allowing users to move from one web page to another within a site
Netnews Wire: A free RSS news aggregator for the MAC
Network: A Facebook term for a broader social grouping such as a city, large company or university. Eg. London, Yahoo, King’s College
News Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content
News feed (aka cha-cha changes, activity stream): Throttled, filtered amalgamation of friend generated stories over the past 48 hours
Negator: An RSS company that provides us with Feed Demon, Netnews Wire, its own web-based feed reader and powers the feeds in Microsoft Outlook
News reader (sometimes called a feed reader, RSS reader or news aggregator): Gathers the news from multiple blogs or news sites via RSS feeds selected by the user, allowing them to access all their news from a single site or program
News vine: An open source, community news service, which lets members customize the news viewed by “seeding” articles or posting for others to view and rate
Nonflow: An HTML attribute instructing search engines to not allow a hyperlink to a web page to be influenced in ranking by that link. Originally implemented to combat certain types of search-engine spam
Notification: A low importance message either generated automatically or as a result of a friend’s action
O
Offline: Means not online, that is, not connected to the Internet
Online: Means being connected to the Internet, and also being there in the sense of reading or producing content
Online advertising: One or a combination of CPA, CPC, CPM or Tenancy. Search is a form of CPC but is so large (Google AdWords) that it usually referred to separately
Online community: A group of people using social media tools and sites on the Internet
OpenID: Is a single sign-on system that allows Internet users to log on to many different sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site
Open media: Refers to video, audio, text and other media that can be freely shared
Openness: Is being prepared to share and collaborate – something aided by social media
Open Social: A technology for deploying the same application across multiple platforms (Myspace, Friendster, Hi5 but not Facebook or LinkedIn)
Open video: Refers to the movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video. With the release of HTML5, publishers will be able to publish video that can be viewed directly in Web browsers rather than through a proprietary player
P
Page (aka Brand Page, Fan Page): The anthropomorphic representation of a brand within a social network
Paid search marketing: Is the placement of paid ads for a business or service on a search engine results page. An advertiser pays the search engine if the visitor clicks on the ad (pay-per-click or PPC)
Permalinks: Are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogged will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message
Personal media: User-created material — refers to grassroots works such as video, audio and text
Platform: The ability for third parties to serve additional applications to users eg. The Facebook Platform
Podcast: A downloadable radio show designed to be listened to on an iPod
Podcase: Is a term created in the podcasting community to refer to any work that allows the legal use of the work in podcasting, regardless of restrictions the same work might have in other realms, such as radio or television use
Poke: Smallest unit of communication on a social network eg. you have just been poked by Jane, do you want to poke back?
Privacy settings: The ability to limit social content by network or friend lists
Profile: The online representation of an individual’s identity
Property: A generic term for a page, application, widget or web site
Public domain: A work enters the public domain when it is donated by its creator or when its copyright expires. A work in the public domain can be freely used in any way, including commercial uses
Public media: Refers to any form of media that increase civic engagement and enhance the public good
Q
Quantcast: Used to measure the amount of traffic a URL receives, as well as data about the readership (demographics, psychographics, etc.)
R
Readiness: Is a check on whether you – or your organization – are prepared to engage with social media
Registration: Is the process of providing a username, password and other details when seeking to access a website that has restricted access
Remix: Is any work that takes elements from two or more media files and mashes them together to create a new piece of media
Retention Loop: The application dynamic that encourages me to return regularly to an application
Rich Media Ad: A display advert that includes video or interactivity
RSS (Really Simple Syndication): Is a Web standard for the delivery of content — blog entries, news stories, headlines, images, video — enabling readers to stay current with favorite publications or producers without having to browse from site to site. RSS feeds let users subscribe to content automatically and read or listen to the material on a computer or a portable device
S
Screencast: Is a video that captures what takes place on a computer screen, usually accompanied by audio narration. A screencast is often created to explain how a website or piece of software works, but it can be any piece of explanatory video that strings together images or visual elements
Search engine marketing (SEM): Is a series of online tactics that, when combined with SEO, helps to attract customers, generate brand awareness and build trust. SEM (sometimes called search marketing) seeks to increase websites’ visibility chiefly through the purchase of pay-per-click ads and paid inclusion
Search engine optimization (SEO): Is the process of arranging your website to give it the best chance of appearing near the top of search engine rankings
Sentiment: A level of assessment that determines the tone of an article, blog post, a company, etc.; usually positive, negative, or neutral
Share: The act of sharing a piece of content with specific friends or “posting to profile” so that those friends particularly interested in me will read it
Sidebar: A column (or multiple columns) along either or both sides of a blog site’s main content area. The sidebar is often includes contact information of the author, the blog’s purpose and categories, links to archives, honors and other widgets the author includes on the site
SOB: A badge of honor in the spirit of community and knowledge sharing. Created by Liz Strauss at Successful (and Outstanding) Blog(gears)
Social Action: An interaction on a social network that triggers a story to be posted to a user’s profile. E.g. Toby just added an iPod to his wish list.
Social Ad: A display advert targeted to a particular social demographic (age, location, relationship status) or profile data (job, interests)
Social bookmarking: Is a method by which users locate, store, organize, share and manage bookmarks of Web pages without being tied to a particular machine. Users store lists of personally interesting Internet resources and usually make these lists publicly accessible. Delicious is the best-known social bookmark site
Social capital: Is a concept used in business, nonprofits and other arenas that refers to the good will and positive reputation that flows to a person through his or her relationships with others in social networks
Social Graph: An online representation of your real world network of relationships. This is created only through mutual consent (“friending” someone)
Social Media: Are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, social media refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online
Social Media Optimization (SMO): Is a set of practices for generating publicity through social media, online communities and social networks. The focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO
Social Network: An online environment to share, communicate and play with your friends . eg. Myspace, Bebop, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut (also see social network platforms that allow you to create your own social network such as Ning)
Social networking: Is the act of socializing in an online community. A typical social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace or Bebop allows you to create a profile, add friends, communicate with other members and add your own media
Social news: Sometimes called social sites, social news sites encourage users to submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus determining which links are showcased
Social Remixing: Mash up between a user’s social data (photos, friends etc.) and a brand or product to create something new. A Nudge creative process
Social tools (sometimes called social software): Are software and platforms that enable participatory culture — for example, blogs, podcasts, forums, wikis and shared videos and presentations
Social Utility: An editorless, rules based, Social Network. E.g. Facebook operates as an ecosystem rather than as a channel
Spambot: Automatic software robots that post spam on a blog
Slogs (short for spam blogs): Blogs not providing their own or real content. Unscrupulous publishers use automated tools to create fake blogs full of links or scraped content from other sites in order to boost search engine results
Status: 140 character description of what a user is doing right now. E.g. Toby is writing a glossary of Social Media terms
Streaming media: Unlike downloadable podcasts or video, streaming media refers to video or audio that can be watched or listened to online but not stored permanently
Style or Style sheet: CSS that determines the look/feel of a site
Subscribing: Is the process of adding an RSS feed to your aggregator or newsreader. It’s the online equivalent of signing up for a magazine
Syndication: Allows your blog content to be distributed online
T
Tag cloud: Is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or descriptions that people are using on a blog or website. Popular tags are often shown in a large type and less popular tags in smaller type
Tagging: The slightly secretarial act of allocating particular keywords to content eg. Flickr photos
Tags: Are keywords added to a blog post, photo or video to help users find related topics or media, either through browsing on the site or as a term to make your entry more relevant to search engines
Technorati Authority: Used to determine the number of times a keyword or URL are mentioned and linked in blogs
Teleconferencing: Is holding a meeting without being in the same place, using a network connection and tools like Voice over IP, Instant Messaging, Video, and Whiteboards
Tenancy (sponsorship): The advert is displayed for a set period of time. Eg. Pampers sponsors Netguns
Terms of service (TOS): Are the legal basis upon which you agree to use a website, video hosting site or other place for creating or sharing content
Threads: Are strands of conversation. On an email list or web forum they will be defined by messages that use the use the same subject. On blogs they are less clearly defined, but emerge through comments and trackbacks
Trackback: Some blogs provide a facility for other bloggers to leave a calling card automatically, instead of commenting. Blogger A may write on blog A about an item on blogger B’s site, and through the trackback facility leave a link on B’s site back to A. The collection of comments and trackbacks on a site facilitates conversations
Troll: Is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion
Tool: Is used here as shorthand for a software applications on your computer, and also for applications that are Web-based
Transparency: Enhancing searching, sharing, self-publish and commenting across networks makes it easier to find out what’s going on in any situation where there is online activity
Tweet: A post on Twitter, a real-time social messaging system
Tweetup: An organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter. Users often include a hashtag, such as #tweetup or #sftweetup, when publicizing a local tweetup
Twitter : Twitter is a popular social network, unveiled to the public in July 2006, that lets members post updates of no more than 140 characters. People have begun using Twitter in interesting ways to point to news stories, to raise funds for charity, and other unexpected uses
Twitter verse: Akin to blogs and the blogosphere, the Twitter verse is simply the universe of people who use Twitter and the conversations taking place within that sphere
U
User generated content (UGC): Stands for user-generated content, an industry term that refers to all forms of user-created materials such as blog posts, reviews, podcasts, videos, comments and more
Unconference: Is collaborative learning event organized and created for its participants by its participants
Update: A newsletter sent to Fans of a Page
Upload: Is to transfer a file or other content from your computer to an Internet site
URL: Uniform Resource Locator is the technical term for a web address, eg http://thesocialmediaguide.com.au
V
Videoblog (or vlog): Is simply a blog that contains video entries. Some people call it video podcasting, vodcasting or vlogging
Viral Loop: The dynamic that encourages me to share a property with my friends
Virality: The number of new users gained for each user. eg. a virality of 1 means for each user one new user is gained
Virtual world: Is an online computer-simulated space like Second Life that mixes aspects of real life with fantasy elements
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) enables you to use a computer or other Internet device for phone calls without additional charge, including conference calls, eg Skype
W
Wall: Shared discussion board specifically about an individual and displayed on the individual profile
Warm Traffic: Sending users to your web site that have already been engaged via a social page or app – eg. “warmed up” users who are more likely to convert to customers
Web 2.0: Refers to the second generation of the Web, which enables people with no specialized technical knowledge to create their own websites to self-publish, create and upload audio and video files, share photos and information and complete a variety of other tasks
Web analytics: Is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purpose of understanding who your visitors are and optimizing your website
Web-based tools: Google, Yahoo and a host of other commercial organizations provide an increasing range of free or low-cost tools including email, calendars, word processing, and spreadsheets that can be used on the web rather than your desktop
Webcasting: Refers to the ability to use the Web to deliver live or delayed versions of audio or video broadcasts
Web conferencing: Is used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet
Web feed: Such as RSS or Atom, allow you to read, listen or watch new content on a blog or a website without having to revisit that site
Webinar: Short for Web-based seminar, a webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web
Widget (sometimes called a gadget, badge or applet): Is a small block of content, typically displayed in a small box, with a specific purpose, such as providing weather forecasts or news, that is constantly updating itself (typically via RSS). Widgets make it easy to add dynamic content to your site or blog
Wiki: A technology designed to allow many different people to edit a web page by providing an easily reversible audit trail of edits and changes. The best example of this in practice is the Wikipedia project
Word-of-mouth marketing: Sometimes called grassroots marketing or conversational marketing, is an umbrella term for dozens of techniques that can be used to engage and energize customers
WordPress: Is a popular open source blog publishing application
X
XML (or Extensible Markup Language): Is an advanced language developed by the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) to complement HTML. HTML is about displaying information, while XML is about describing information
Y
YouTube: Is a video sharing website where you can upload, view, share and comment on clips from TV, film and amateur videos
Z
Please let me know what other social media terms (and definitions) I have missed!
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