Familiarize yourself with Social Media Glossary for B2B
Get to know the language and terminology
Were you one of those who pooh-poohed David Fincher’s “The Social Network”? Stayed away from watching “a movie about computer geeks” or “the Facebook movie”? Wonder if that will change now after the film won 3 out of the 8 Oscars it was nominated for. It’s funny how we scramble to get up to speed with the Red Carpet buzz. And yet, many of us are guilty of lagging behind on the knowledge about business tools and terminology that can actually help our business; i.e. Social Technologies.
There is a wide umbrella of social technologies under which social media channels, social networks, social technology tools, social media optimization techniques, etc. function cohesively. From early days to current trends, to what we will see more of in the future, it helps to know and understand relevant terms. B2B businesses can use social technologies in different ways, integrating them with proven, traditional methods of lead generation, lead nurturing and lead management.
As you can see from my recent blog posts, I am looking into social media with some skepticism on how effective it is for lead generation for now. Instead of taking the hype at face value I have started working with experts in the field to take a deep dive into this area.
Here is some of the social media terminology we have learned and started to add to our vocabulary. (While the terms below are categorized like a timeline of past, present and future, the boundaries are not very distinct. Much of what we saw in the initial stages of social media is still around, just vastly improved. Likewise, what is new and current today won’t necessarily die out, it will just get more sophisticated and measurable in the future.)
| Early Days | Current | Emerging |
|---|---|---|
| Blog: An online journal, with new entries appearing in sequence as they are written | Buzz: A social networking and messaging tool from Google, designed to integrate into the company’s web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in “conversations” and visible in the user’s inbox | 1-2-1 Marketing System: Building a unique relationship with millions of prospects/customers at once with online social tools |
| Embedding: Adding code to a website so that a video or photo can be displayed while it’s being hosted at another site | Delicious: (formerly del.icio.us) A social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks | Astroturfing: An orchestrated grassroots campaign that seeks to create the impression of legitimate buzz or interest in a product, service or idea |
| Feed: A format that provides users with frequently updated content | Digg This: The words that may appear below a blog post as a hyperlink which readers can click to submit the post to the Digg website | GroupPrice: An online group buying site for B2B buying where small business can source administrative services, training tools / trainers, office supplies / products, and so on |
| RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a web standard for the delivery of content — blog entries, news stories, headlines, images, video | Hashtag: A community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets | Lifestreaming: A chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline. It is only limited by the content and sources that you use to define it. You can create a lifestream to bring photos, videos, bookmarks, microblog posts and blog posts from a single user into one place using RSS |
| Social Media: Knowledge transfer online using SlideShare, YouTube, Blogs, Wikis, and Forums | HootSuite: A Twitter application – an analytics tool that allows you to track and measure the effectiveness of your tweets | Socially Facilitated Selling: The new sales model for B2B which uses social tools to engage, respond and help prospects/customers remember you. Social selling helps turn buyers into “raving fans” who then sell for you |
| Social Media Marketing: Using social media to put out a set of coordinated marketing messages with a specific goal e.g. increasing sales, introducing a product, reinforcing a brand message | Meme: A catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet. | Social CRM: A process to monitor, engage and manage conversations and relationships with existing and prospective customers and influencers across the Internet, social networks and digital channels |
| Viral Marketing: A marketing communications message that is designed to spread | Podcast: A digital file (usually audio but sometimes video) made available for download to a portable device or personal computer for playback at the user’s convenience | Socially Directed Buying: The new sales model for B2C companies which uses social tools and mobile applications to direct the revenue stream and funnel customers towards buying actions |
| Webcasting: Using the Web to deliver live or delayed versions of audio or video broadcasts. | Reddit: A social news website on which users can post links to content on the Internet. Other users can vote the posted links up or down, making them more or less prominent on the Reddit home page | Socially Enabled Tasks: Operational value of social technologies. For example: CRM, recruiting tools, collaboration, project management, virtual teams, etc. |
| Wikis: A website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser | Social Media Monitoring: The use of search engine technology to ‘listen’ for specific keywords as defined by your organization | SOBCon: A convention that brings together leaders in social media – an example of how to leverage social media and build a following around an upcoming event |
| Social Media Optimization (SMO): A set of practices for generating publicity through social media, online communities and social networks. | Social Search: Combines traditional search algorithm methods with information gleaned from social networking sites to determine which results would be most applicable to the user. | |
| Social Networking: Socializing in an online community e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter | Twebinar: A mash up between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion. | |
| Social Relevance: Online reputation / image / brand value What do people see when they Google you? What is their perception when they see your profiles in social communities like LinkedIn? | Twelpforce: Best Buy’s set up that leverages hundreds of employees who provide customer support on Twitter. The employees are managed through a custom built system that keeps track of who participates. |
Which social media platforms do you find to be the most effective? If you could choose your top 5 what would they be? Look forward to your comments!
Hi Louis,
I do social media analysis for b2B client. They want to know their share of voice on social media platforms.
For that we track Linkedin, Twitter, Slideshare, youtube, Blogs.
I tried pulling data from Digg, Delcious, reddit etc… but didn’t find them useful.