Use Social Media to Reach Your Target Audience
May 2nd, 2009 Posted in Social Media
Your son in college is posting family Christmas pictures on Facebook, talking about writing on walls and giving people bumper stickers. You go to work and suddenly the boss urges you to join the company’s Facebook group and check out the latest news on Twitter. Your coworker next to you is busy linking in and calling websites “delicious.”
So what’s going on, and what are all these things out there on the Internet?
“Delicious?”
Social media.
What is Social Media?
Social media is a collection of Internet tools and communication forms used to interact with others, professionally and for entertainment purposes.
These tools often use images, video, and audio for effect and to enhance the experience.
Along with this new technological world, comes a new language. In this language and lingo are many words and sayings that may sound strange at times. Words we thought before as just a noun or verb are being used to connect and interact with other people online. Social media lingo is often heard in everyday conversations, and the images they go along with are seen on websites constantly.
To help you learn more about social media and what it is, it is important to understand what is being said. In the following table are explanations of common words used online and off line.
Social Media Glossary
| Term | Basic Meaning | Example Website | Example Use |
| application | A program or software, often games or for entertainment purposes, that can be found on social networking sites. | MySpace, Facebook | “I have been getting a lot of application invites and they are annoying.” |
| avatar | An icon-like image with a human resemblence to represent your account or profile. | Yahoo! Answers | “My avatar looks just like me.” |
| blog | A word coming from “Web Log.” An online journal or diary. | Blogspot.com, Wordpress.com | “I wrote about my exciting day in my blog.” |
| bookmark | To save a website into your browser or a bookmarking website for future reference and sharing. | Digg, Delicious | “Bookmark that site so you can look at it later.” |
| bulletin | An announcement or public message to all the users or friends on your account or list. | MySpace | “Jimmy posted a bulletin last night saying he was dropping out of school and joining the circus.” |
| bumper sticker | A virtual sticker from a Facebook application(see below) that often has humorous images or quotes and can be put onto your profile. | “You have a lot of bumper stickers on your profile.” | |
| chat | An online conversation with one or multiple users on an instant messaging service (see below) | AIM, Yahoo! Messenger | “I chatted online with my sister in Ohio last night.” |
| comment | A public message viewable on someone’s profile, usually made my friends. | MySpace | “Did you check your comments? I just commented on your wall.” |
| contacts | List of users you are connected with on the site | LinkedIn.com, e-mail | “I will add you to my contacts and send you the e-mail.” |
| delicious | An adjective of a website, article, or online item that is worthy to go onto the bookmarking site, Delicious. | Delicious.com | “I’ll show you some cool sites I have on Delicious.” |
| digg | A verb used to be interested in a website, article, or online item that will be rated on the sharing and ranking website, Digg. | Digg.com | “The article I wrote got a lot of Diggs.” |
| friend request | The request from another user to be an online friend and to let them view your profile. | MySpace | “That boy from the party sent me a friend request.” |
| groups | A collection of users, based on a shared belief or way of thinking. | Facebook, Yahoo! | “I joined the ‘Students for Branding’ group.” |
| icon | A small image used to represent a user or to decorate a profile | Photobucket | “I found a really cool Jonas Brothers icon to put onto my profile.” |
| IM | Instant Message, a message used to communicate in a chat online (see above) | AIM, Yahoo! Messenger | “I’m going to IM you the homework assignment.” |
| link | The easy way to get to a website, or to share a website with someone. Also, to connect with another website through linking with each other. | All kinds of websites | “I will send you the link to my website. There are some more links on it you can take a look at.” |
| linking in | Connecting with coworkers and peers on the social networking site, LinkedIn. | LinkedIn.com | “I linked with Susan from my old job.” |
| message | A private message sent to your social networking site account from another user. | Facebook, LinkedIn | “She sent me a message about it on MySpace.” |
| network | A specialized area you belong to, like a large community. | “She is in the same network as I am.” | |
| online community | A gathering of users online to share and discuss a common belief. | Postsecret.com | “I found an online community of young fathers just like me.” |
| pages | A section of Facebook with company and business profiles used to interact with users. | “Apple released a new computer, I saw it on their Facebook page.” | |
| podcast | Audio or digital video files that are viewable and distributed online. | Apple iTunes | “I saw a new podcast of Jon Stewart last night online.” |
| poke | The action of getting someone’s attention on Facebook. Often used to show off your profile, flirting, or annoyance. | “Please stop poking me on Facebook.” | |
| profile | A page on a social networking site with all viewable information, such as your picture, contact information, interests, etc. | MySpace, Facebook | “I looked at her profile – she seems pretty cool.” |
| profile picture | The image that is placed in the profile to represent yourself. | MySpace | “Did you see Megan’s profile pic? She got her hair cut really short.” |
| RSS | A system of web feeds that allow users to publish and view updated online content in one spot. | Blogs | “I check my RSS feed every morning.” |
| share | To virtually tell someone about or show them something you found or created. | News sites, blogs | “I’m going to share the article I found on CNN with you.” |
| status | A section to tell friends and other users what you are doing, about to to, want to do, etc. | Twitter, Facebook | “Josh: is going to class then hanging out.” |
| subscription | To subscribe to the actions of another user or one of your online friends. Each time they post something new, you are informed. | Myspace, Blogs | “Please subscribe to my blog so you can recieve updates.” |
| tag | In the social media use: to mark something online, organize it with a marking so others can find it better, or to mark someone in a picture. | Blogs, Facebook | “Tag me in that picture when you put it online.” “The tags for the article are listed on the side.” |
| top friends | The numerical order of friends on your profile, often ranked by importance. | MySpace | “Why did you take me out of your top friends?” |
| user-created, user-generated (wiki) | A site with content created and updated by users online. Often many users, worldwide. | Wikipedia.com | “I changed some false information on the Wikipedia page about Tom Cruise.” |
| username | The name you create for yourself on a website and used to log in. (example: kace06) | Everywhere | “I have the same username for all of my sites.” |
| viral video | A video created for online use of entertainment and to be passed around the Internet among friends. | Youtube.com | “Did you see that viral video of the really cute laughing baby?” |
| wall | The space on a Facebook profile where comments are written, or posted (see below) and items can be shared. | “A lot of people have written on your wall.” | |
| wall post | A public comment on a Facebook user’s wall. (see above) | “My boyfriend told me Happy Birthday by posting on my wall.” |
Social Networks
This type of site is very popular on the web today. The popularity with these can be seen often among young adult and pre-teen crowds. But anyone can use this tool to connect and share their lives with friends and family. This is mainly what social networking does.
Social Networking sites are a place for users to connect with friends and family, find users with similar interests, and to just display a little about yourself for the web to see.
“Should you jump on this bandwagon?”
These sites have improved greatly over the years and are always coming out with new ways to make things easier, and new features for you to play with. They often allow you to upload photos to share and have music to listen to while browsing.
On some of these sites you can personalize your profile to look however you want it to. Others have a basic look with your added information such as “About Me, Interests, Favorite Movies, and Hobbies.”
Social networking sites include:
- Bebo
- Classmates
- DeviantART
- A social site geared towards artists and users with creative work to share
- Users can upload all kinds of art from photographs to computer images
- 110 million active users on the site
- Most popular among college crowd
- Flickr
- One of the largest photo sharing sites
- Used by professionals and amateurs to store and show off photos
- Friendster
- Hi5
- Imeem
- Most popular among professionals and adults
- A newer way of connecting and networking at the workplace
- Lively by Google
- Loopd
- Myspace
- Popular with all ages, from 15-year-olds to Grandmothers
- The most popular social networking site on the web
- Reunion
- Second Life
- YouTube
Bookmarking
A fundamental idea about online use is to be the most popular thing out there. This is what bookmarking and page ranking websites help users with.
When a user online reads an article they like, or watches a video they think everyone should see, they can “mark” or “tag” it.
You could think of it like reading a book and marking your favorite chapter, or like taking notes to go back later and review again.
This also will let other users know it is a favorite of theirs and can allow other users to rank it as well. Also, for people who like to mark their favorite sites, it is easy to store all of their “bookmarks” in one easy spot.
If something is popular online, you can find it here:
- Bloglines
- BlogMarks
- Delicious
- An online community that allows users to mark organize their favorite websites
- Easy way to share sites and popular news with friends and family by collections and links
- Digg
- A collection of web pages that are ranked by users
- Also popular with ranking podcasts or video
- Stumbleupon
- Yahoo! Buzz
Blogging
Blog. A new, cool sounding word. You have most likely heard it associated with someone’s name, such as “Tim’s Blog, A Day in the Life of Sarah, The Soccer Mom’s Blog,” and so forth. The term, “blog,” came from the original words of “web log.” When people started to use these words often, they combined to become “blog.”
“Did they misspell something?”
A blog is an online journal or archiving system in which users can write or “log” their lives, stories, current events, or just random facts.
Many different types of blogs exist. There are blogs for or about anything you could imagine out on the web.
People have personal blogs about themselves, and there are even companies or businesses with blogs about their industry and work.
Blogs used to be just writings of day to day things, but now there are sponsored advertisements and links involved. This all plays into the social networking and media that blogs are apart of.
Some blogging software are:
- Blog
- Blogger
- BlogSpot
- Blogster
- LiveJournal
- Online blogging and community, focused around personal journals
- Users can use different and creative backgrounds or themes for their blog
- Type Pad
- Windows Live Spaces
- Wordpress
- Xanga
- Yahoo! 360
Even after all of this explanation of social media and its own language and examples, you might find yourself asking, “But, what’s the big deal about social media?” You might also wonder, why is it beneficial to check your friends’ status messages, share opinions through blogging or post articles that are interesting?
- Social media connects you with the rest of the world.
- It allows you to share and communicate in forms you cannot in the offline world.
- Beyond the fun part of sharing and chatting, social media can offer many benefits in areas such as Marketing, Branding, and just getting your name out there.
- With Marketing and other areas, companies like the idea of reaching a new, young crowd with such an easy media outlet.
- It is important to stay up to date with all of this new technology because our world is becoming intertwined with it.
- Social media tools are used at your job, at home, and talked about in the news.
All in all, social media might seem like a big, confusing, high-tech world. But it doesn’t have to seem so scary. It is here to help, entertain and educate. Instead of running away from the thought of this online place, or just letting your children and co-workers discover all the opportunities, go out and make some friends.
Link your life to everyone else’s and update your own world.
| Kasey Wherley
Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us. |
5 Responses to “Use Social Media to Reach Your Target Audience”
By delaney on Jun 30, 2009
Great information for anyone interested in becoming an online social butterfly.
By Misty Carver on Jul 6, 2009
This information is great for begiinners! I feel like I should share this link with my mom- who just got a facebook. Maybe in the next article we could see a more in depth look at what tools are really could for beginners using social networking for business and those who are using it for personal information. Keep up the great work branding brand!
By Christine Smith on Jul 12, 2009
This blog has some fabulous information that needs passed on! Companies need to jump on the social media bandwagon to ensure their success in the future, but many just don’t understand the terms and WHY exactly social media is so important.
Another topic that should be discussed in the social media world is how it can be bad for your image / your company’s image as well!
By Bill Bartmann on Sep 3, 2009
I’m so glad I found this site…Keep up the good work
By Kara Arnold on Oct 12, 2009
Thanks for the recommendations, Misty and Christine!