Social Networking Glossary | Business Blog Buddy

Glossary

Glossary of common internet/social networking terms:

A

Above the fold: This is the bit of the web page that you can see without scrolling down

AdSense: Available to blog and web publishers, this is Google’s pay-per-click, context-relevant program which provides a way of you creating additional revenue

Adwords: The advertising bit that populates AdSense where the advertiser pays Google on a per click basis

Affiliate: A partnership site that links to your own site

Affiliate marketing: A partnership between a website owner (affiliate) and a retailer (affiliate merchant) which is based on the owner advertising the retailer’s products /services in return for a fee for every generated lead or sale.

Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content

Alerts: A search engine tool that tells you whenever a new web page is published which contains a key word(s) you have specified – for example your company name

App: short for “application” which performs a specific function on your computer or handheld device

Archives: Most often an index page which organises posts or entries by category or date

Atom: A popular feed format used for syndicating content

Authentication: Confirming that you are who you say you are!

Authorisation: Allowing you to do what you are trying to do!

Avatar: A graphical image or likeness that replaces your photo on the content of a blog – (ever wanted to be young and blonde? Now’s your chance!)

B

Back channel: Private communications during public conferencing which take the form of emails or other messages sent by the facilitator or between individuals. They can have a significant effect on the way that public conversations go

Badge: A usually square image which is displayed on a blog to show that the blogger is participating in a particular event, contest or social movement.

Biz Blogs: A contraction of “business blogs” a device increasingly used by companies and organisations to communicate with their customers, partners and employees

Bliki: A word combining the words “blog” and “ wiki” (see below) which describes a blog collaboratively edited by a group of people.

Blog: the contraction of the word “weblog” whereby you can publish what you like through the internet. (Get it right and it may help drive business, get it wrong and it will be a missed opportunity)

Blogosphere: The collective term for all the blogs on the internet

Blog Post/Entry: The content published on a blog which can include photos, videos and links to other sites

Blog storm (or swarm): when the blogosphere is subject to thousands of posts about a particular subject the likely effect of which is for the story to be picked up by mainstream media

Blogroll: A list of blogs that you recommend

Bookmarking: Saving the address of a website or item of content. You do this either on your browser for you to look at again or on a social bookmarking site to share with others. See more here: What is Social Bookmarking?

Bulletin boards: Once referring to a central posting and reading of e-mail like messages, this term is still used for forums

C

Campaign: A set of targeted, scheduled online marketing messages, designed to eg raise funds or increase sales.

Categories: a pre-specified way of organising/indexing content to make it easier to find

Cause marketing: when corporates and non-profits form a relationship that simultaneously drives business for the corporate and raises funds for the non profit.

Champions: an enthusiast that gets things moving online through posting messages, responding or helping in order to get conversations started in an online community

Chat: a number of people adding text items one after the other into the same space at (almost) the same time

Civic media: any form of communication that strengthens community bonds

Cloud computing (or “the cloud”): refers to the growing phenomenon of users accessing their data from anywhere rather than being tied to a particular machine

Collaboration: discussing and working with diverse people outside the usual confines of organisation, time and space. Based on trust, this is driven by activities like commenting, social bookmarking, chatting and blogging

Comments: written reaction to blogs posts by readers

Communities (or online communities): groups of people which often emerge from conversations around or between bloggers with a shared interest to talk or more formally learn from each other and find solutions.

Community building: using internet technology to recruit individuals, help the find shared interests/goals and build a network or community

Connect (Facebook Connect / Friend Connect): The ability for you to bring your friends with you to existing sites or the ability for existing websites to allow users to login with their Facebook or Google accounts

Content: text, pictures, video and any other meaningful material that is on the internet

Content Management System (CMS): Software which allows the website owner to add or edit content directly rather than through a website designer

Conversation: Through blogging, commenting or contributing to forums is the currency of social networking. An online conversation

CPA (Cost per Action): Payment relating to someone taking a specified action eg in response to an affiliate where you have placed an advert which has attracted business

CPC (Cost Per Click): Payment relating to someone clicking on an advert link eg to Google for an AdWord CPM (Cost Per Mile (thousand impressions)): Payment relating to the amount of times someone sees an 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: a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

Crowdsourcing: Outsourcing to several competitors (usually individuals) and awarding a prize to the winning entry – eg. to design a new logo.

D

Dashboard: The admin 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, organised by a time period. Mostly this is on a month-by-month basis

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 “digg” stories they like or “bury” others they don’t (if we include Digg, we have to include other things too. This is mentioned in social bookmarking anyway

Digital inclusion (or e-inclusion): Helping those who are not online gain access to the Internet through affordable products and services

Digital story: “mini-movies” created and edited by people like you, using cameras, computers, scanners and your own photographs. This is normally about your own life and experiences and is less than 8 minutes long.

Do-good networks: Online communities aspiring to make the world a better place

Domain Name: The identifying name of an internet site. For example, www.business-blog-buddy.co.uk

E

eBook: an electronic version of a traditional printed book that can be downloaded from the Internet and read on your computer or handheld device

Embedding: The act of adding code to your website so that a video or photo can be displayed while it’s being hosted at another site. For example links to YouTube

Engagement Ad: A display advert that includes interactivity specific to the particular social network. eg. Click here to follow Jane on Twitter @janebuswell

Entry: An individual post or article published on a blog which. Although indexed, are web pages in their own right

e-Readiness: is a check on whether you – or your organisation – are prepared to engage with social media

Event Blog: A blog specifically launched as a companion to an event

Eye Rest: Using something to relieve your readers a rest from a load of text. For example

images
bold text
bullet points
lists
hyperlinks

F

Feed: Content from a particular source which is added to at regular intervals

FeedBurner: Is a Google tool allowing web sites, blogs and podcasts to “burn” content into a simple way for readers to subscribe (incl. email)

Feed Reader: also known as a News Reader, Web Reader or News Aggregator automatically updates you with fresh content from a site/sites you have selected so that you do not have to check whether there is anything new, This excellent video by Common Craft explains it very clearly: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Findability: a term for the ease with which information contained on a website can be found, both from outside the website (using search engines and so forth) and by users already on the website.

Flash mob: 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

Forums: discussion areas on websites, where people can post messages or comment on existing messages at any time

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-categorisation of friends on a social network eg. Co-workers, Current Friends, Clients, Old Friends

G

Geotagging: adding geographical-based info to media such as photos, video or online maps to help users find businesses and services based on location

Groundswell: an obvious change of public opinion or political sentiment that occurs without leadership or overt expression and gets expressed through the Internet – sometimes aimed at particular organisations

Groups: Are collections of individuals with some sense of unity through their activities, interests or values

Hashtag: Twitter users often use a hashtag like #followfriday to aggregate, organise and discover relevant posts

Hits: any request for a file from a web server and therefore much less accurate than number of visitors (as one visitor can make several hits)

Hosting: A service which brings a blog, video or podcast online and available to the world wide web

Hyperlink (or Links) an underscored phrase that can be activated to connect to another page on the world wide web. Follow this one to Jane’s blog

Hyper-local community: Online communities related to a specific geographical location

I

Influencer: A person with expertise in a particular subject who is as having the ability to influence online communitiesInstant messaging (IM): Chatting with one other person online using for example via Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger

Internet newsroom: the area of a corporate website that communicates messages and content to the news media and the public

J

K

L

Lifecasting: an around-the-clock broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media such as a webcam

Lifestreaming: the practice of bringing an online user’s disjointed online presence to one central location or site via photos, videos, bookmarks, microblog posts and blog posts

Listening: In the online sense this is tracking what topics are building up or setting up searches to monitor mention of yourself or your organisation

Lurker: Someone who reads social media content but rarely contributes. It is said that the usual ratio is 1% creator, 10% commenter and 89% lurker!

M

Mashup: Combining two or more web services to create something new. eg. combining Twitter posts with Google maps to create TwitterVision

Message Boards: An online discussion site for people looking to discuss particular issues in the hope of gaining more information or starting a conversation

Metadata: Titles, descriptions, tags and captions that are attached to a media item such as a video, photo or blog post

Microblogging: The term for broadcasting bite-sized messages to other subscribers of a particular online service eg Twitter where entries are limited to 140

Micro-philanthropy: Donating in small amounts (£1, £5, £10, £20)

Moblogging: Posting to your blog via your mobile phone

Monetisation: making money through your online presence

Multimedia: Media and content in different forms such as videos, photos, audio files and so forth

N

Navigation (Nav or Navbar): A menu of links or buttons within a website which allows users to move from one web page to another

Network: a broader social grouping such as a city, large company or university. eg. Southampton, IBM, Portsmouth University

O

Offline: Not connected to the Internet
Online: Connected to the Internet! And in the sense of actually doing something on it

Online community: A group of people using social media tools and sites on the Internet

OpenID: a single digital identity that allows you to log on to many different sites without having a different user name and password for each site

Open media: Refers to video, audio, text and other media that can be freely shared

P

Page (Brand Page or Fan Page): The online representation of a brand within a social network

Paid search marketing: The placement of paid ads on a search engine results page whereby you pay the search engine if visitor clicks on the ad (pay-per-click or PPC)

Permalinks: Blogs are made up of many posts. The permalink is the unique URL of a single post on a blog. It is usually located at the bottom of the blog entry. It is used when someone wants to link specifically to a certain post they wish to reference to when they are writing about it. …

Personal media: material you have created yourself such as video, audio. photos and text

Platform: An online arena supporting a number of applications to the same users

Podcast: a digital file (usually audio but sometimes video) made available for download to a portable device or personal computer for later playback.

Podsafe: 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

Privacy settings: The ability to limit what you share with whom online

Profile: A short online description of you

Public domain: A work enters the public domain (and can be freely used in any way) when it is donated by its creator or when its copyright expires

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 web address receives, as well as data about the readership

R

Registration: The process of providing a username, password and other details in order to access a website that has restricted access

Rich Media Ad: A display advert that includes video or interactivity

RSS: Stands for Really Simple Syndication. It 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.

It’s a way to save time reading web sites by making sure any new information on your favourite blogs or news sites automatically gets stored in one central place, or feed reader. Google Reader is an example of this.

This excellent video by Common Craft explains it very clearly:
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

S

Screencast: usually accompanied by an audio commentary, this is a video that captures what is taking place on a computer screen. A good device to show people something online actually works
Search engine marketing (SEM): a series of online tactics that, when combined with SEO, seeks to increase a website’s visibility in order to attract customers, generate brand awareness and build trust.

Search engine optimisation (SEO): a technique applied to your website to give it the best chance of appearing near the top of search engine rankings

Sentiment analysis: analysis to determine the attitude of an individual in respect to some topic. The attitude may be their judgment or evaluation; their emotional state or the emotional effect the author wishes to have on the reader

Share: The act of sharing a piece of content with specific friends or “posting to profile” so that those friends particularly interested in you will read it

Sidebar: A column (or multiple columns) along either or both sides of a blog site’s main content area. This usually includes

contact information;
the blog’s purpose; and
categories,
links to archives,
badges and other widgets the author includes on the site

Social Ad: A display advert targeted at a particular social demographic (age, gender, location, relationship status) or profile data (job, interests)

Social capital: the good will and positive reputation that flows to a person/organisation through his or her relationships with others in social networks

Social Media: 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. This definition also refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online. Also known as Social Broadcasting.

Social Media Optimization (SMO): techniques to drive traffic from social media sources rather than search engines

Social Network: An online environment to share, communicate and play with your friends.

Social news (or social sites): where users are encouraged to submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus deciding which links are highlighted.

Social tools (or social software): software and platforms that enable user interaction eg:

blogs
podcasts
forums
wikis
shared videos and presentations

Social Utility: A rules based Social Network without an Editor or Moderator

Spambot: Automatic software robots that post spam on a blog

Splogs (short for spam blogs): Blogs not providing their own or real content but created by automated tools creating fake blogs full of links or by scraping content from other sites

Status: Description of what a user is doing right now. Eg Jane is thinking that a cup of tea might be nice …

Streaming media: video or audio that can be watched or listened to online but not stored permanently

Style or Style sheet: Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) that determines the look/feel of a site

Subscribing: the online equivalent of signing up for a magazine by adding an RSS feed to your newsreader.

Syndication: Allows your blog content to be distributed online

T

Tag cloud: Relating to tags or descriptions on a website – this is a visual representation of their popularity a visual representation of the popularity of the tags. Popular tags are shown in a large type and less popular tags in smaller type

Tags: Keywords added to a blog post, photo or video to help users more easily find related topics or media

Teleconferencing: Holding a meeting across the Internet rather than in the same physical location

Tenancy (sponsorship): The length of time an advert is displayed for a particular sponsor.

Threads: Strands of conversation on the same subject or of the same opinion – i.e., messages on a forum or comments on a blog

Trackback: the facility of some blogs to allow visitors to automatically leave a calling card rather than writing a comment

Troll: Someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community with the primary intent of disrupting normal discussions

U

User generated content (UGC): 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 organised and created for its participants by its participants

Upload: to transfer a file or other content from your PC to an Internet site

URL: or Uniform Resource Locator which is the technical term for a web address, eg http://www.business-blog-buddy.co.uk

V

Videoblog a blog that contains video entries. Other terms are video podcast, vodcast or vlog.

Virtual world: An online computer-simulated space 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: A discussion board displayed on an individual’s profile allowing comment from anyone who has access.

Warm Traffic: Sending those who were initially engaged via a social page or app to your website.

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: the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purpose of understanding your visitors and optimising your website

Web-based tools: 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: the ability to use the Web to deliver live or delayed versions of audio or video broadcasts

Web conferencing: used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet

Webinar: Short for Web-based seminar, this is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web

Widget (gadget, or applet): a small block of content with a specific purpose (such as providing weather forecasts or news) that is constantly updating itself. Typically displayed in a small box, these make it easy to add dynamic content to your site or blog

Wiki: technology designed to allow many different people to edit a single web page by providing an easily reversible audit trail of edits and changes. The best example of this in practice is the Wikipedia project