Wednesday Words: Photoblog

Today's word covers another type of blog - Photoblog.

A photoblog is a blog that tells a story, shares experiences or just shares gorgeous scenery via photos - normally taken by the blogger.

WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr are all commonly used platforms to photoblog with.

Companies engaging in social media may find running a photo blog might be useful to their endeavors - especially if they can share things via photos with little to no text.

A great photoblog, which includes text, is Humans of New York.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Listed

Another word from the Twitterverse - today we talk about Listed.

In a previous article, we talked about taking advantage of Twitter Lists. Today's word has to do with Lists. Listed is a word meaning the act of being added to a Twitter List. Lists are often arranged by creators depending on what you're posting about. I've been added to a number of social media and gaming lists because that is what I post the most about. I've also been added to a few author lists as well - since I'm an author, of course.

Twitter users create lists of various users they follow and are interested in in order to have all information based on certain content in a specific place for easy consumption. Some lists are public and other users can use them to find content as well.

As a brand, you may consider creating lists as well - perhaps grouping them into social influencers, users who praise your brand, etc.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Mentioned

Today's word comes from the Twitterverse and it's concerning what happens when your brand is tagged, or mentioned, in a Twitter post.

When someone tags you with your handle by posting your handle (like mine is @kayhynn) in a post when they are talking to you or about you, you've been Mentioned.  You are "Mentioned" any time your Twitter handle is included in a Tweet.

Follow Fridays is most often when people are mentioned, though mentions also occur when replying to posts, tagging people to thank them for something, or tagging people to have them see something in particular (such as those people who compile paper.li papers they tag you to late you know you've been mentioned in them).

Mentions are a great way to expand your user base as more people will see your name with replies, etc.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Social Media Revolution

In many ways, Social Media can be considered a revolution in the terms that it has changed the world in a way that cannot be reversed. Looking at it from that definition, there definitely has been a Social Media Revolution and it continues to grow - changing and revolutionizing the way people interact with brands, books, authors, stars, etc., as well as with each other.

Social Media has taken the world by storm. One of the radio stations locally has a quip about it. "Sharing your thoughts out loud all day every day would have marked you as crazy. Now, it's called social media."

And in many ways, this is an accurate description of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram - you can share your thoughts instantaneously all day on whatever subject you feel like. You can express your like/dislike for a brand. You can talk about how someone/something offended you and more. And you're a target for branding by all forms of social media - notice the ads?

Many people get their news, not always accurate news but still news, from social media. You learn about the latest celebrity deaths (and death hoaxes) through social media. Even though social media isn't the most reliable form of news, it's still that - news.

Social Media is here to stay. Learn more about the Social Media Revolution by checking out these additional articles on Social Media Revolution:

• If You Doubt That Social Media Has Changed The World, Take A Look At Ukraine
• How Mad Men Missed The Social Media Revolution
• Small Change - The New Yorker
• Social Media Revolution - Facebook Facts and Social Media Statistics
• The Social Media Revolution in Remarkable Facts & Figures [VIDEO]

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Source: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-marketing/buzzwords-decoded-32-social-media-marketing-terms-explained-in-plain-english/

Wednesday Words: Conversions

A few weeks ago we talked about Clickthrough Rate (CTR). Today's term, conversions, is a similar term to CTR that is used by social media marketing folks. A conversion is an action that demonstrates a visitor is "converting" to a customer. That means the person has taken an action, such as liking your page, clicking on an "action" item to purchase, etc.

Keep in mind, sales aren't the only thing that counts in conversions. Your action item could be getting people to sign up for a webinar or newsletter, download a free ebook or other content, sign up for a forum, fill out a form for a contest etc.

Tracking conversions is important for analyzing social media and allowing revenue to be properly attributed to social media campaigns and social media in general.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

While today's term, Clickthrough Rate (CTR), isn't strictly limited to social media, it is still a part of social media as well as website performance data.

Clickthrough Rate is a metric which shows the number of people who clicked on an ad or link in a campaign after viewing a message, video or image. Basically, it called them to action and they took that action you wanted - whether it be buying a book, signing up for an email newsletter, visiting your website, etc.  The metric is calculated by comparing the number of clicks to impressions.

So, for example, if 1,000 people saw your add in google and 10 people clicked on the ad, the clickthrough rate would be 1%. The theory is, the higher your CTR, the more effective your marketing campaign has been.

So if you are driving campaigns through social media to your website and you have Google Analytics or other Analytic tools set up, you should be able to see how many hits came from that marketing campaign and via social media stats you can see how many people viewed it and figure out your CTR from there.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Trending Topic

Late last year we had a Tuesday Tip regarding paying attention to Trending Topics, but failed to actually define Trending Topics (though the article, found here, kind of makes it clear). So we're rectifying that today and will define trending topics.

Trending topics are topics on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.,  being discussed more than any others. A great example of this would be when there were all the stories about Caitlyn Jenner or, more recently, the death of James Horner.

Trending topics are located to the left of the main Twitterfeed and to the right top of Facebook's news feed. Trending topics are updated in real time. If you click on any of the Trending topics in any of the social networks, you will be taken to a page containing all the posts on that subject. This feature makes it useful to those with Facebook and Twitter accounts as it can draw attention to your page without paying for advertising. Simply talk about the subject - if it applies to your brand and social media - and use the correct hashtags to be seen by others in the Trending Topics pages.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Tweetdeck

If you use Twitter a lot and haven't heard of Tweetdeck yet, then today's post is going to be extremely useful to you.

Tweetdeck is a product created by Twitter that allows you to customize your Twitter experience as well as make managing a company Twitter account easier by sharing the Tweetdeck account with the team without sharing the password.

Tweetdeck can be accessed via http://tweetdeck.twitter.com and you can login with your Twitter account name and password to set it up. From there, you can customize it by creating timelines which allows you to track certain topics, events and hashtags.

It also allows you to better filter searches and schedule Tweets, similar to what hootsuite does.

So if you're looking for a way to super-power your Twitter account, learn more about TweetDeck and its features here: https://about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck and then get started here: http://tweetdeck.twitter.com

Good luck!

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Content Marketing

Today's word is relevant to all social media platforms and that term is Content Marketing. Content marketings is a marketing technique of creating and then distributing relevant and useful online content in order to attract and engage a defined target audience.

So, for example, this blog is technically content marketing as I'm writing on topics targeted at an audience that is new but interested in learning more about social media marketing. I market that the blog is useful for everyone from total beginner to advanced, which I think it is useful for everyone.

Content marketing is a valuable resource for brands and is something your social media marketer or PR manager can handle easily.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Discover

Did you know there is an easy way to discover new people to follow in five different ways on Twitter? There's a Discover feature that has 5 functions to allow you to find new people to follow.

The first option is Tweets.  This option shows you the most popular Tweets on Twitter at the time you are looking. Some Tweets will be specific to your interests based on who you are following, retweeting, etc., while others will be globally trending tweets. You will have the option to follow the folks making those tweets, retweeting, etc.

The next option is the Activity tab. This shows the interactions of people you follow, including their latests retweets, replies and favorites, allowing you to do the same as well as follow the people they retweet.

The Who to Follow option provides you with suggestions of people similar to interests you have recently followed as well as accounts that are flagged as interesting that might be of interest to you.

The Find Friends option allows you to import contacts from your contact book and see if they are on Twitter. If they are, you can easily follow them.

Finally, the Popular Accounts option creates a list of some engaging and followed accounts on Twitter.  This list is created based off your interests.

If you're looking for new people to follow on Twitter, Discover is a great way to go about doing it!

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Viral Marketing

We've all seen the ad that gets shared by all of our friends, our friends' friends and our friends' friends' mom (if she's on Facebook/Twitter/Whatever Social media).  They shared the video because it's cute or "you have to see this, it's great" and that becomes the next thing that has been viral marketed.

That's what today's word is: Viral Marketing.  Viral Marketing is a risky technique where marketers hope that users share the information to each other repeatedly leading to wide coverage and interest.

Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way to create a "viral video or "make something go viral."  How viral something will be is impossible to predict. Basically it comes down to something that strikes a chord with someone and it gets shared, it strikes a chord with others, shared and goes from there.

It is definitely a risky marketing technique, especially if you invest thousands of dollars into creating a video that you expect to go viral and it doesn't.

So if you're looking into viral marketing, just remember, it's not a guarantee of marketing success.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Clickbait

Today's word is Clickbait, or as I love to put it "Bad headlines that don't tell you jack about the story." Which is pretty much what Clickbaiting is.  Clickbaiting is writing a headline that encourages readers to click on it to find out the whole story.  They are designed to pique your curiosity and are often headlines like "You Won't Beleive What Happens Next" or "This One Weird Trick Works".  Then you find that you actually do belive what happens next or duh, of course that trick works.

As of this year (2015) Facebook is actively working against Clickbait articles, trying to have an algorithm to where they don't appear as high in feeds when shared by folks and the origial poster. I applaud Facebook for taking steps to exterminate clickbaiting.

If you are considering sharing clickbait articles, please don't.  It's annoying and only makes people distrust you and your brand. Create unique, intriguing article headlines that attract people rather than creating a lie to draw them to your page and website.

Good luck!

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Microblogging

Today's word covers a combination of platforms, including a platform we don't yet cover on SMMTT. That word is microblogging.

Microblogging is the opposite of blogging, which consist of relatively long posts.  Microblogging is really short blog posts expressed via text, images or video. Microblogging's appeal is both its immediacy and portability because posts can be written or received with a variety of devices, including cell phones. Twitter and Tumblr are two great examples of microblogging.  There's even a site dedicated to Microblogging called Microblogger.com complete with a newsletter and podcast about microblogging.

Some people even consider Facebook's status updates a form of microblogging, which I suppose is true if you keep your statuses short and sweet - and we all have that one friend who definitely doesn't do that, right?

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Twitterverse

If you hear the phrase twitterverse, twitosphere or twittersphere, you don't need to worry - they all mean the exact same thing.  These words are used to refer to the collective posts made by users on Twitter and describes Twitter as a universe (or ecosystem) of sorts.

So every tweet made, every Twitter user is a part of the larger Twitterverse and a part of the collective whole.

An interesting thought for those who are wanting to be unique on Twitter.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Social Influencer

Today's term is a term that pops up quite frequently whether a part of Klout or not and that term is social influencer.

Social influencers are individuals who have acquired a loyal audience of social media followers who respect and trust their opinions.  These influencers often spend time creating and sharing content on subjects they are knowledgeable about with their followers.  Some of the Twitch streamers have become social influencers because of the content they put out - whether it be game reviews, Let's Play or whatever - and then brands use them to spread messages.

Social influencers are important to brands because people trust influencers over brands because of their authenticity.  Most social influencers are very effective at spreading online messages to their followers who then share them with others.

Social influencers often share posts from others, helping them to become influencers as well, which is great in the social media networking web.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Social Media Manager

 This is a term that comes up regularly in the job postings we share on Mondays.  The term can be fairly varied, ranging from social media manager to social media diva to social media director (or director of social media) to social media coordinator, but they all ultimately end up being the same job (unless they end up being in charge of a team of people).  A Social Media Manager is, ultimately, the person in charge of planning, developing and implementing a social media plan and content strategies for a brand, cause, celebrity or topic.

Keep in mind, companies often have different expectations of what they want their social media manager to do - including marketing at times.  Be sure to read what the responsibilities of the job are before applying as different companies do expect different things - for example some may require you to be on Reddit or Tumblr a lot as part of the job, others may only require Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Happy New Year!  We will be skipping Thursday Tutorials this week because of the holiday.  Enjoy the time off, if you have it.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Handle

Today's word is for Twitter and I'm actually surprised I haven't defined this word already (I looked to be certain I didn't).  Today's word is handle.  A handle, on Twitter and other websites even, is the name you choose to represent yourself.  It is, effectively, what appears after the @ in your twitter account.  Mine, for example, is @kayhynn.

Every handle needs to be unique and should be something representing you or your brand.  Kayhynn, for example, is the moniker I used in gaming and other websites for years.  It was available and a unique nickname I made for myself.  I use it to promote all of my work, now both gaming related and non-gaming related, like tweets for this blog and other blogs, as well as my author blog and such.  Other sites that I've created Twitter accounts for, are reflective of their website. For example, SciTechNerds.com is @SciTechNerds.

So if anyone ever asks for your Twitter handle, you now know what to give them or what you need to create if you don't have one.

Being as it's Christmas Eve, there will be no Thursday Tutorial post for tomorrow, which is Christmas Day.  We will have a scheduled Christmas post, but we hope everyone is spending time offline with their friends, family and loved ones.

Merry Christmas.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Following

As mentioned in last week's Wednesday Words on Follower, today's word is Following.  Following is an action you actively take to be someone's follower.

Following is a term native to Twitter but is also used on Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. It is used to describe the action of clicking on the "Follow" button for a user.

For a brand, following is something you want your users to do and something you should encourage when branding your company. "Follow us on Twitter at: @ usernamehere"

So the key here, encourage people to "follow you" and in turn, you should be following others both on your brand account and on your personal account in an effort to build followers.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Follower

The words for this week and next week are connected and should be pretty obvious, but if you're new to social media, you may be confused by the terms.  This week's term is follower.  Next week's term is following.

Follower is a term native to Twitter but is also used on Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. A follower is a person (or sometimes brand) that takes interest in you to actually follow you on one or multiple social media sites. A follower could be considered the equivalent of a "like" on a Facebook page.

The actual definition of follower, according to the dictionary, is "an adherent or devotee of a particular person, cause, or activity." Which actually defines it pretty well.

Followers often retweet/repost things they like or find interesting from people they follow. Followers for brands are especially important as they help increase the brand's reach as well as communicating with the brand or individual about what they like/don't like.

Followers can often also encourage others to follow you, whether it be through Follow Friday or just from people seeing that they've followed you so they do too.

Followers can be helpful and it's a good idea if you are building your brand not only to have followers, but to follow others as well.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Wednesday Words: Application Programing Interface (API)

If you have a website/blog for your brand, you may have heard that there are various APIs for social media to use to integrate your website and or forums with that form of social media.  API is short for Application Programming Interface and it allows software applications to interact with other software applications.

With websites, you often have to work with various social media developer tools and their API to get plugins for that social media to work on your website.

A great example of use of social media API is Xenforo forums. They have a plugin which works with Facebook and Twitter's API's to allow users to register and login to forums via their social media accounts.

Another example is the "Like" widgets you can find on various Wordpress based sites (like mine here: http://www.gracesnoke.com ).  These all make use of APIs.

For more information, check out developer tools on Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.