An example of a “Meme.”
In the last decade or so, tech terms have become part of our every day vernacular. Once you get started with your social media marketing, you’re going to run into these terms on the regular. Boutique Technique has put together your handy-dandy cheat sheet so you’ll never feel as lost as a squirrel, again.
Missing something? Let me know in the comments.
Aggregator: Any site or service that pulls information from varying sources & displays it in a coherent fashion is a content aggregator. For example, organizewonder.com.
Archives: An organized index page that collects a website’s posts from the past. For example, you can place an archive on the side of your blog so people can find and read previously written blogs.
Blog (noun): An online publication, designed and written by you, the blogger. Blogging gives individuals and small businesses an outlet for sharing content, opinions, and advice in written article form. Today there are many types of blogs, ie. “vlogs.”
Blog (verb): To blog, means to write and post an article on your blog.
-Flog: A fake blog. I don’t even know what this would look like, but there’s a word for it.
-Micro-Blog: Mini blogs. Ie. Twitter posts are micro-blogs. You are releasing regular content but in mini-form.
-Vlog: Video blog. Keep in mind that there are search problems for vlogs with no words attached, try to pair your vlog with a blurb about your vlog content, or post your video within a written blog.
Blogosphere: The blogosphere is an imaginary atmosphere where blogging chatter flows and grows. People say things like, “The Blogosphere is buzzing with varying opinions of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage!”
Captcha: A series of letters that are used when someone tries to respond to a social media post. The writer must correctly type the letters before posting. The captcha was created to assure that a person, as opposed to a software program, is writing the response.
Creative Commons License: This allows you to keep copyright of your work, but allows others to distribute your work on other social media or social networking websites. The photography website, known as Flickr, has a series of free photos that are available for use on other websites. You can never claim the material as your own, and when known, must credit the photographer.
Dynamic Content: Dynamic content is content that is constantly changing. For example, videos and animations.
del.icio.us: I’m still getting the hang of this, but man is the idea cool — though not easy to write out the first time! del.icio.us is a better way to save your bookmarks. If you’re really liking a page and want to keep it on your computer, you can use CTRL-D to save it to (and only to) your computer. BUT, if you save it to del.icio.us, you can access it on any computer.
There’s also a social component to del.icio.us that means you can connect with followers who like the pages that you’re bookmarking. So, I can follow your tagged entries, or you can follow mine, and we’ll be saving a ton of time for one another PLUS getting our hands on awesome, new content.
Engagement: Used to describe “comments” or “likes” and general interaction by fellow social platform users.
Enterprise 2.0: The use of social media to change the way we work within an organization. The difference in how we collaborate and our new ability to access our audience’s wisdom, thoughts and opinions to better our product and provide what is truly wanted.
Flog: See blog.
Hashtag: On social media sites, such as Twitter, a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) is called a hashtag. It is used to essentially “tag” a keyword so your content can be found by a wider audience, all of whom are interested in the same topic.
For example, if I post a funny picture of my dog on Instagram, I might include #Dogs in the caption. Other people searching for pictures of dogs on Instagram might find my picture which opens up the possibility of broadening my audience and improving my engagement.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages.
Here’s an example of how HTML is used to tell the computer what I want “bold,” etc.:
Keywords: Keywords are the descriptive words that describe a piece of media. A good use of keywords makes it easier for a website, article, or video to be found on search engines, such as google. Social platforms (such as Twitter and Instagram) makes it possible to hashtag these key words. View hashtag.
LinkedIn: This is a wonderful social resource for connecting with like minded individuals in your professional field. Here you post your resume and skills so that you can find work, browse potential employees, or share what you and your business is up to in an effort to network, grow your connections and attract consumers. You can ask professional questions, gather professional feedback, and network. In fact, I would consider this the closest form of face to face networking that there is on the social web. All connections must be approved by both parties, so there’s a sense of privacy is gradually disappearing on many platforms, like Facebook.
Mash-ups: Two pieces of content that have been mashed together to create something new. One very, very common one is a custom Google map. Housing Maps, for instance, gathers information from Craigslist and information from Google Maps to display the location of available housing.
Meme: (Rhymes with dream). A virally-transmitted symbol or social idea. A meme behaves like a flu or a cold virus, traveling from person to person quickly, but transmitting an idea instead of a life form. For example, the photo of a squirrel taking the front and center spot in a family photo that went viral and caused a brief phenomenon where you could “squirrelize” your own photos using briefly released technology:
Or this kid that you can find all over the place saying a number of different things….
Micro-Blog: See Blog.
Photoblog: A type of blog that allows users to share photos. For example, Instagram. Here’s a link to mine to give you an idea.
Podcast: A podcast is an audio program in a compressed digital format, deigned to be listened to over the web. Basically, a radio show for the computer age.
Transparency and Authenticity: These words circulate the social-media-stratosphere a lot (Did I just come up with a term?? 😉 ), and mean exactly what they sound like. We often learn of companies using social media in a way that is inauthentic, and more often than not, it gets them in trouble. The best marketing is done when you’re yourself and only say what you know.
Tweet: See Twitter
Twitter: Twitter is a microblogging tool. It’s a place where you send short updates to say what you’re up to, what you’re working on, advice, opinions, or links to relevant articles. You can only do so in 140 characters or less. It’s a great tool for keeping in touch with a following which might include friends, current customers and potential customers. Or, for getting your word out to outsiders who you hope to become your following, using hashtags. View hashtag.
Tweets: What your Twitter posts are called.
Tumblr: I’ve only played a little with Tumblr, but it’s a way to post really short blog posts. Some people call it the blogging platform for busy people. You can also pull in feeds from your other posts, share pictures, etc.
User-Generated Content (Acronyms include UGS or CGC, for Consumer Generated Content): Instead of a company or organization generating content for a website, listen to your users and followers and generate content based on their comments and reviews. I do this all the time by writing blogs based on questions that I receive.
Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is used to describe today’s world wide websites that emphasize user generated content. It is also described as the transition of websites from static holders of information to sources of content. It does not refer to an update of any technical specification, but rather to the cumulative changes in the way web pages are made and used in today’s technologically driven era.
RSS: RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is an XML-based format and while it can be used in different ways for content distribution, its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web, as seen below.
Here is the symbol used for RSS feeds. You’ll often spot this symbol on blogs. When spotted, you’ll know the blogger has installed an RSS feed to share the blogs that she/he follows or recommends. This way, you can follow them, also.
Social Media Optimization, or SEO: Social Media Optimization is about making your content portable. Can it be subscribed to through RSS? Can someone submit it to Digg? Can someone take your video and embed it on their site? SEO is the use of a number of social media outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, brand, or event.
Social Networks: The networks used to be social. Ie. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (remember that one?), etc.
Viral: When something goes viral, it spreads online like a virus.
Viral Marketing: A marketing campaign that is so compelling, people share it. So much so, that it goes viral.
Please know that going viral is impossible to predict. Stay true to your brand, release content that puts your best foot forward, and hope for the best.
Vlog: See blog.
White Label: White Label means that someone built a program and they’ll let you have it so that you can put your design around it and make it your own. For example, website builders offer templates that you can change to suit your brand, and launch as your own site. This is an example of a white label product.
Widget: A mini-application, or a component of an interface, that enables a user to perform a function or access a service. For example, if you’re reading this on my wordpress account (BoutiqueTechnique.wordpress.com), you’ll find my Instagram pictures and Twitter feed to the right of this.
These are examples of widgets that allow me and my readers access to my social media so we can connect in other ways. You can also have desktop widgets that update the weather for you automatically, for example. (Vista and Mac OS both have widget capability.) They also live on Facebook, Open Social, and many other places.
Wiki: Wikis are collaboration tools. They allow multiple people to work on the same document, and that document lives online. Plus, it saves all the old versions, keeps a history of who changed what, etc. An example would be Wikipedia.
XML: Extensible Markup Language is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.
Here’s an example of a recipe in XML format.
Missing a term? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to update.
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