A Social Media Glossary

By Lisa Wehr

In the viral world of social media, information moves at the speed of light--from desktops to mobile devices and back again with the click of a button. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, video- and photo-sharing sites--entire virtual worlds--have a language unto themselves. And just as social media moves at an incredible speed, so does its evolving language. Following are definitions of just some of the terms unique to social media--a useful starting place for any marketer looking to explore social media.

Aggregator
A site or tool, such as Bloglines or Google Reader, which displays information related to user-specified keywords. The information is gathered and remixed from multiple websites via RSS feeds. Also, the software, often free, that automatically gathers the RSS-based summaries of a set of user-based blogs or sources for easy browsing.

AJAX
An acronym standing for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. By shifting a great deal of computation to the web surfers computer, web pages dont have to reload when a change is made due to user interaction. AJAX can increase the web pages interactivity, speed and usability.

Audio On Demand
Another expression for audio podcasting, referencing the ability of listeners to start, stop and skip sections or whole recordings at any time and virtually any place.

Blogroll
A list of sites displayed in the sidebar of a blog, which shows who the blogger reads regularly.

Business-class Podcast
A term used to describe podcasts directed toward a professional audience. Business-class podcasts can be casual in nature, although they typically do not have the "garage-band" feel or outreach that lifestyle podcasts tend to have. Lifestyle podcasting or trendy casts are generally targeted at the youth market, and have little long-term branding value.

Compensated Consumer-generated Media (CCGM)
Media where marketers pay consumers to do certain things, or when publishers compensate artists or content creators for submissions, frequently based on their popularity.

Consumer-generated Media (CGM)
First-person commentary posted or shared across a host of expression venues including message boards, forums, rating and review sites, groups, social networking sites, blogs, video-sharing sites, etc.

Consumer-fortified Media (CFM)
Advertiser-created digital media that is shaped and promoted by consumers through online commentary and debate.

Consumer-solicited Media (CSM)
Often called "co-creation" or "participator advertising," CSM involves an online advertiser who provides a format and invites visitors to add their content. Examples include: "create your own 30-second commercial," "upload your sponsor-relevant photo or video" or "send us your best recorded memory of how our brand has impacted your life."

Content Management Systems (CMS)
These are versatile software suites very important to social media, offering the ability to create static web pages, document stores, blogs and wikis, among other tools.

Download Fraud
In a pay-per-download podcast advertising model, there is the possibility that someone could maliciously download a podcast to obtain advertising fees.

Forums
Discussion areas on websites where people can post messages or comment on existing messages asynchronously--that is, not in real-time conversations. Chat rooms are the synchronous equivalent of forums.

Link Baiting
The process by which websites, blogs, etc. encourage links from other sites to improve popularity and to raise positions on search engines. The enticement may include content, online tools, free downloads or anything else another site owner might find worthy of a link.

Mashups
An online service or software tool that skilled "techies" develop by combining two or more tools to create an entirely new service.

News Feed
A collection of headlines, news or story highlights made available on the Internet in a standard format, often from a blog or news source in RSS format so that other sites and programs can check and download them automatically.

Permalink
The URL of a specific item of content, such as an individual blog post, rather than the address of a web page where many items or blog posts are located.

PING
An acronym standing for "packet Internet grouper." This is an automatic notification sent when a blog has been updated. It also describes the automatic communication between networked computers/servers.

RSS
Standing for "Really Simple Syndication," RSS is the XML format that allows a user to subscribe to content on blogs, podcasts and other social media, and have it delivered automatically through a feed.

Slivercasting
The increasingly popular practice of broadcasting niche-audience video over a high-speed Internet connection rather than using costlier TV/network channels

Social Bookmarking
The collaborative equivalent of storing favorites or bookmarks within a web browser. Social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us or Furl allow people to store their favorite websites online and share them with other who have similar interests.

Social Media Optimization
Approaches and methodologies used to increase the positions on various social sites or postings on search engines.

Social Tagging
The placement on shared social sites of keywords that describe the content of a website, bookmark, photo or blog post. Tag-enabled web services include social bookmarking sites, photo-sharing sites (e.g., Flickr) and blog-tracking sites (e.g., Technorati). Social tagging provides a useful way of organizing, sharing, retrieving and discovering information.

Trackback
An automated feature contained in some blog software that allows a blogger to determine who has linked to the original post and written another related to it.

VIRTUAL Whiteboards
Online collaboration tools that enable a user to write or sketch on a web page and then remove or "wipe off" the information when used.

Widgets
Mini-tools that may appear as floating items on a desktop or as buttons on blogs. These may help users subscribe to a feed, do a specialized search or even make a donation. Common widgets include weather guides, stock lists, flight trackers, calendars and search boxes.

Wiki
An online, collaborative workspace for multiple users of a web page--or sets of web pages--that can be edited collaboratively. The best-known example is wikipedia, an encyclopedia created by thousands of contributors across the world. Once people have the permission of the wiki owner, they can create pages or add to or alter existing pages.

Lisa Wehr is founder and CEO of Oneupweb, an integrated online marketing firm. She can be reached via e-mail at info@oneupweb.com