Internet Marketing Success with Web 2.0

Social Media Learning Center

Social Media

Understanding How it Works

Social media is an umbrella term, which encompasses a wide range of activities that incorporate web 2.0 technology, social interaction, use of pictures, blogs, audio and videos.

Social media takes many different forms; message boards, Internet forums, wikis, weblogs, audio, podcasts, pictures and video. Technological tools applied to social media include the following; photo-sharing, blogs, video blogs or vlogs, email, wall-posting, instant messaging, music sharing, voice over IP (Internet Protocol), etc.

Following are some examples of websites where social media applications are used: MySpace, Facebook for social networking, Last fm for personal music, Flickr for photo sharing, YouTube for video sharing and social networking.

Differences between social media and traditional media:

Social media or social networking is different from traditional media in many ways. While traditional media includes television, books, newspapers and radio social media contains the above-mentioned features such as social bookmarking, networking, blogs, video sharing, etc. social media basically depends on interactions between people.

Social media is not finite. This is another major difference between Social media and traditional media.

There is no control over setting a certain number of pages or hours. Audience participation encouraged through comments during any time of the day, any day from anywhere in the world.

Content in social media varies in forms; it could be text, graphics, audio or video. A mixture of these formats is used most of the time in social media.

Social media is available through feeds such as RSS (expand), enabling users to register or subscribe via feed readers and letting other publishers to create mashups. mashup refers to a new breed of web-based applications created to combine two different services from different websites into a single website.

Social media is open to one and all from different paths. Anyone could utilize social media; bloggers, Internet marketers, PR, media professionals, just anyone. All one has to do is to check up these websites, sign up to become a registered member and start building a personal networking with others.

Creating a good profile and promoting your expertise is all you have to do to start with and the rest of it is taken care of by your peers online.

Before we conclude we suggest ten useful tips here for using social media effectively to attain your goals:

Educate yourself or your organization about social media, its various features, benefits of using it, methods of using social media, etc.

Set clear goals for what you would like to achieve and when you would like to achieve them.

When participating in social networks and online communities or blogosphere, be genuine and transparent about who you are, whom you represent and about your product or service.

Always use simple and plain language to be easily understood by your peers. Encourage positive and negative feedback and do not be offensive while responding to these.

Make use of interesting and attractive media such as video, audio, animation, etc. and add a little sense of humor to keep your audiences engaged at all times.