WEB 2.0/Social Media What It Is and How to Start Using it
Social networks are ways to describe and communicate the relationships that we have with one another.
Social Media
It began with newsgroups and Bulletin Board Systems, AOL chat rooms and the first online forums . Within the last couple of years an explosion of social media forms and web sites have sprung up to offer literally a multitude of choices.
It has become a powerful marketplace that creates a “word of mouth” locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Social media is an all encompassing term to describe many different types of content and delivery that fit into the following broad categories:
Social Networking Sites
Sites that operate to connect people with one another. Some would be Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. Family and friends through sites like Facebook. Professional through social networking sites like LinkedIn.
Blogging
A blog (from weblog) is a frequently updated web site. Updates happening in the form of journal entries, articles and/or links to things bloggers want to share. A blog usually has an archive and allows viewers to post comments, either through joining or open to all.
Microblogging
A format for posting short updates, limited to a set number of characters, about anything. Twitter has been the most popular microblogging app.
Photo and Video Sharing
A web site that allows uploading and sharing of photos and video with anyone. MySpace and Flickr are the most popular sites for this.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks can be shared with others and tagged. del.icio.us can make it easy for finding sites that use the same bookmark.
Social News
Social news sites like Digg provide links to news stories on the Internet. Stories that have been submitted, voted on by the users and then published into category lists.
Podcasts
Sharing audio and video recordings online. Also, both audio and video can be streamed lie to the Internet through web cams.
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How to start with social media/WEB 2.0
Listen
Online people may already be talking about your business or service. At the very least they are communicating about other businesses and services just like yours. What are people saying? Are they frustrated? What do they like? What do they not like?
Do this by reading blogs related to your products or services. Use a web site blog directory like Technorati to find the blogs.
Join
Join the social networking communities that you found in Listening that your customers are participating in. Contribute when it is beneficial for finding out more about your own business. Some tips for joining:
- Use a memorable name, such as your company name or short tag line
- Use your real photo as opposed to the company logo
- Post some contact information, especially your website and email
- Be professional, certainly don’t “argue” with someone
Participate
- With blogs comment with your unique opinion with your expertise.
- With online forums create discussions about topics relative to your website’s offerings
- Comment on videos and photos that relate to what you do
- Share interesting links to other web sites that you come across
- Keep a log or notebook of what works and what doesn’t.
Create
Create your own content after you have been doing the first 3 steps here for awhile. You have been building an online brand for awhile with the acts of joining and participating.
Content should be something worthwhile and valuable. Continue to build on your brand, all the while linking back into the web site.
Back to the website planning page
Some other web browser tools that may be of interest:
Keeping up with news about the type of business or service that you have.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
To be able to see everything in a simple and easy to access way is to have a RSS reader. It’s a free subscription for notification when a website or blog has been updated. Some readers can be found at:
http://www.google.com/reader http://blogspace.com/rss/readers http://www.newsgator.com/individuals/default.aspx
Start Pages/a personal portal
Collecting many different types of information in one screen can be done with one of these tools.
Try either www.netvibes.com or www.google.com/ig
Feed Readers–What’s happening in the blogs
Collecting similar types of information from one screen. Feed readers grab the feeds you choose so you can read say a number of blogs in one screen. Look at: http://www.bloglines.com/ or http://technorati.com/
Keyword/Search term Alerts
http://google.com/alerts can be used to automatically monitor when keywords are used.
Updates to specific web pages
Want to know when a web page has been updated. Use http://www.watchthatpage.com/ or http://www.trackengine.com
Searching across social networks
Want to find a name across the social networks. Then try: http://www.yoname.com or http://www.wink.com.
Rankings of searches
What are viewers searching for? See by using: http://www.alexa.com/ or http://www.icerocket.com
Forums, message boards
What’s being communicated on forums and message boards can be found at: http://www.boardreader.com
Tracking Trends
Keeping abreast of what is happening in the marketplace. What new things are impacting customer thinking. A number of tools to investigate to determine which would be best. They are all a little different from one another.
Back to the top
WEB 2.0/Social Media What It Is and How to Start Using it
Social networks are ways to describe and communicate the relationships that we have with one another.
Social Media
It began with newsgroups and Bulletin Board Systems, AOL chat rooms and the first online forums . Within the last couple of years an explosion of social media forms and web sites have sprung up to offer literally a multitude of choices.
It has become a powerful marketplace that creates a “word of mouth” locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Social media is an all encompassing term to describe many different types of content and delivery that fit into the following broad categories:
Social Networking Sites
Sites that operate to connect people with one another. Some would be Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. Family and friends through sites like Facebook. Professional through social networking sites like LinkedIn.
Blogging
A blog (from weblog) is a frequently updated web site. Updates happening in the form of journal entries, articles and/or links to things bloggers want to share. A blog usually has an archive and allows viewers to post comments, either through joining or open to all.
Microblogging
A format for posting short updates, limited to a set number of characters, about anything. Twitter has been the most popular microblogging app.
Photo and Video Sharing
A web site that allows uploading and sharing of photos and video with anyone. MySpace and Flickr are the most popular sites for this.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks can be shared with others and tagged. del.icio.us can make it easy for finding sites that use the same bookmark.
Social News
Social news sites like Digg provide links to news stories on the Internet. Stories that have been submitted, voted on by the users and then published into category lists.
Podcasts
Sharing audio and video recordings online. Also, both audio and video can be streamed lie to the Internet through web cams.
How to start with social media/WEB 2.0
Listen
Online people may already be talking about your business or service. At the very least they are communicating about other businesses and services just like yours. What are people saying? Are they frustrated? What do they like? What do they not like?
Do this by reading blogs related to your products or services. Use a web site blog directory like Technorati to find the blogs.
Join
Join the social networking communities that you found in Listening that your customers are participating in. Contribute when it is beneficial for finding out more about your own business. Some tips for joining:
Participate
Create
Create your own content after you have been doing the first 3 steps here for awhile. You have been building an online brand for awhile with the acts of joining and participating.
Content should be something worthwhile and valuable. Continue to build on your brand, all the while linking back into the web site.
Back to the website planning page
Some other web browser tools that may be of interest:
Keeping up with news about the type of business or service that you have.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
To be able to see everything in a simple and easy to access way is to have a RSS reader. It’s a free subscription for notification when a website or blog has been updated. Some readers can be found at: http://www.google.com/reader http://blogspace.com/rss/readers http://www.newsgator.com/individuals/default.aspx
Start Pages/a personal portal
Collecting many different types of information in one screen can be done with one of these tools.
Try either www.netvibes.com or www.google.com/ig
Feed Readers–What’s happening in the blogs
Collecting similar types of information from one screen. Feed readers grab the feeds you choose so you can read say a number of blogs in one screen. Look at: http://www.bloglines.com/ or http://technorati.com/
Keyword/Search term Alerts
http://google.com/alerts can be used to automatically monitor when keywords are used.
Updates to specific web pages
Want to know when a web page has been updated. Use http://www.watchthatpage.com/ or http://www.trackengine.com
Searching across social networks
Want to find a name across the social networks. Then try: http://www.yoname.com or http://www.wink.com.
Rankings of searches
What are viewers searching for? See by using: http://www.alexa.com/ or http://www.icerocket.com
Forums, message boards
What’s being communicated on forums and message boards can be found at: http://www.boardreader.com
Tracking Trends
Keeping abreast of what is happening in the marketplace. What new things are impacting customer thinking. A number of tools to investigate to determine which would be best. They are all a little different from one another.
- http://www.hitwise.com
- http://www.google.com/trends
- http://www.buzz.yahoo.com
- http://www.trendwatching.com
- http://www.blogpulse.com
- http://www.marketingcharts.com
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