I offer this glossary of social media terms to help clarify the various components of the Web 2.0 movement. Remember, social media is just one tool in your marketing toolbox, but it’s becoming a very important tool.

Social media is a term for the blogs, podcasts, widgets and other tools and platforms people use to publish, communicate and share content online. Let’s get into what all of this means.
Blogs. Blogs are websites with dated items of content in reverse chronological order, self-published by bloggers. Entries, called “posts,” often have keyword tags associated with them, are typically available as feeds and allow commenting. This EvoBloggito post describes why more and more businesses are blogging.
Chat. This consists of a number of people interacting on a web site in the same space at the same time. Chats take place in “chat rooms,” which differ from a forum discussion because conversations happen in real time.
Feeds. Feeds facilitate subscribing to blogs and other RSS-enabled sites so you can read, view or listen to the information there without visiting the site. Feeds list content and associated tags in list form, not on a web page.
Forums. These are discussion areas on websites consisting of messages or comments from people on existing messages.
Instant messaging (IM). IM facilitates a chat with one other person.
Online communities. Communities consist of groups of people who have a shared interest and communicate through the Internet. They may contact each other via community-based messaging (like email) or forums, where content is centralized. Communication often emerges via blog post comments as well.
Podcast. Audio or video content that you can download automatically and view or listen to offline (on an iPod, for example).
Profiles. Your profile consists of information you provide about yourself when you join a social networking site, such as your picture, personal and business interests, a brief biography, and tags to help people search for people who have similar interests. In a business environment, your profile is also a marketing tool that represents your professional side.
Social networking. This is when people join social networks, create a profile and communicate with other members using blogs, forums, messaging (inter-network email) videos, images, tags, friends and other tools.
RSS. Really Simple Syndication is a well-established web standard for the delivery of news headlines or stories. RSS feeds deliver new content to you on the topics you are interested in. RSS provides a convenient way to syndicate information from a variety of sources, including news stories, updates to a Web site or important bulletins. Most people take advantage of some form of feed-reader software to monitor updates to RSS feeds.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines like Google or Bing, via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
Tags. These are freely chosen keywords bloggers attach to a blog post, forum post, bookmark, photo or other item so other people can identify the content through searches and aggregation.
Threads. Strands of conversation on an email list or forum defined by messages pertaining to and falling under the same subject. Blog threads emerge through comments and trackbacks.
VNR. A video news release is an electronic version of a text press release, with the information translated into a broadcast news style story. With in-house production and post-production capabilities and the latest digital video technology, iPressroom has produced VNRs for clients who previously thought they could never afford to tell their story on video.
Web 2.0. This a term refers to blogs, social networking sites, wikis and other web-based services that facilitate interactive publishing (collaboration and sharing of information). Likewise, Web 1.0 refers to less interactive web publishing (think of an unchanging website that only an administrator can alter).
Widget. A widget is the part of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information and invites users to act in a number of ways. Typical widgets may include buttons, dialog boxes, pop-up windows, selection boxes, windows, toggle switches and forms.
Wiki. A wiki is a web page or set of pages that can be edited collaboratively by thousands of contributors across the world once contributors have permission from the wiki owner.

Source: ipressroom.com and webopedia.com.

A FEW OTHER NOTES REGARDING SOCIAL MEDIA

Let’s face it: social networking can bewilder the most intelligent person you know. I’m here to tell you it’s absolutely okay if you “don’t get it.” I’m still trying to figure it all out myself. How? I currently manage several Blogger blogs, a WordPress blog, two Ning social networks, three Twitter accounts and a typical (some would say “old school”) static website.

I admit, I’m still deciphering how best to use Twitter, but I do feel confident in advising against “following” just anyone, or “adding friends” on various social networking sites if you don’t see a business benefit in the making.

A “tweet” does wonders for promoting your blog, announcing a product launch or humanizing the person behind the product. But following 2,000 “tweeters” simply because they are following you is not a strategy. Following the marketing specialist or blogger who promotes information associated with your industry is. This 2008 blog post by social media specialist Chris Brogan sums up Twitter’s potential business benefits nicely.

Stick with me and together we’ll bring your message home.