Here's the last chapter of our handy guide to social media terms. Next week, look for our informative The One Grand Smart Marketing Plan. Get your free subscription to this site now and don't miss anything.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): A form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). Methods include: search engine optimization (SEO), paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.
Second Life (SL): A virtual world developed by Linden Lab, accessible via the Internet. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars.
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.
SERP: Search engine results page, the list of sites found when searching on a browser.
Sharing: Offering other people the use of your text, images, video, bookmarks or other content by adding tags, and applying copyright licenses that encourage use of content.
SMS messaging: Short Message Service is a communication service, using standardized communications protocols allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. (AKA texting.) SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application on the planet, with 2.4 billion active users.
Social bookmarking: A method for people to search, organize, store and share items (blog posts, online articles, pictures, etc.) of interest using the item's URL.
Social media: A term to describe tools and platforms people use to produce, publish and share online content and to interact with one another. Social media tools include blogs, podcasts, videos, microblogs, wikis, etc.
Social network: An online environment to share, communicate and play with ones friends.
Social networking sites: Large sites that host multiple communities comprised of people with profiles who have with similar interests. Some examples are: Facebook, Flickr, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Social remixing: A mash-up between a user's social data (photos, friends etc.) and a brand or product to create something new.
Spambot: Automatic software robots that post spam on a blog.
Spoke.com: A LinkedIn clone.
Status: 140 character description of what a user is doing right now on Twitter.
StumbleUpon: An Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine that uses peer and social-networking principles.
Style or Style sheet: CSS that determines the look/feel of a site.
Syndication: A method that allows blog content to be distributed online.
Tags: Keywords attached to a blog post, bookmark, photo or other item of content so you and others can find them easily through searches and aggregation.
Tag-enabled web services: These include social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us), photo sharing sites (like Flickr) and blog tracking sites (like Technorati). Tags provide a useful way of organizing, retrieving and discovering information.
Technorati: An Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati indexes 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.
Technorati authority: Used to determine the number of times a keyword or URL are mentioned and linked in blogs.
Threads: Strands of conversation on web forums or blog comment areas.
Tool: Software applications on a computer or that are web-based.
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.
Tumblr: A blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users are able to "follow" other users and see their posts together on their dashboard.
Tweet: A single post or entry made on Twitter.
Twitter: An online community of people writing text-based microblog posts of no more than 140 characters in real time.
Twitter Search: A search engine that filters keywords or specific users in real-time tweets. Update: A new post sent to fans of a Facebook page.
Upload: To transfer a file or other content from a computer to an Internet site.
User generated content: Text, photos and other material produced by people who are users of a blog.
VOIP: Voice over Internet Protocol enables people to use a computer or other Internet device for phone calls without additional charge.
Viral: The rapid spread of online content.
Virtual worlds: Online places like Second Life, where you can create a representation of yourself (an avatar) and socialize with other residents.
Wall: A shared discussion board on Facebook about an individual and displayed on the individual's profile.
Widget: A stand-alone application that can work on both web sites and on profile pages.
Web 2.0: A term coined by O'Reilly Media to describe blogs, wikis, social networking sites and other Internet-based services that emphasize collaboration and sharing, rather than less interactive publishing like static websites.
Webinar: An online seminar.
Wiki: Webpage used to collect content about a topic. Anyone with access to the page or pages can edit or modify the information. The best-known example is Wikipedia.
WordPress: A highly respected open-source blogging platform.
Yammer: A microblogging service that, like Twitter, allows users to post updates of their activities. Unlike Twitter, Yammer focuses on businesses and only individuals with the same email domain can join a given network.
YouAre.com: Another Twitter clone.
YouTube: An online site for uploading and discussing videos; videos can also be embedded from YouTube into other social media sites such as blogs or social networks.
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