Top Terms When Using Social Media and Social Networking

Social media and social networking have become popular buzzwords. Businesses are using them. Individuals are using them. Yet you may be wondering what they are and how you can catch up on the terminology.

Social media includes the various media formats that are shared socially. This includes pictures, videos, audios and text. It is considered social media because anyone may produce this media, such as large businesses, small businesses or individuals. Another facet of this media is that it can be created and made available quickly.

Social networking is networking socially. Rather than network at breakfast business meetings with other businesses, both businesses and individuals are networking through various social networking sites. The communication can be done on a schedule that fits both individuals and can be done no matter where the individuals are in the world.

Social networking sites are sites that provide social networking. Popular websites include Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, You Tube and other sites.

Facebook is a popular networking site that was first available for college students and staff. Now millions of people use it to share pictures, catch up, find out more about products and more, they also connect Twitter and You Tube.

Twitter is also called micro-blogging. This format allows users to share 140 characters of information with their followers. While it can include daily activities, users can use it to ask others questions, share information, or quickly share news.

Blogging is the verb form of blog. Blogs started off as online journals but now are used in a wide variety of ways. They can share information, provide images of a location, share updates and much more. Many people embed videos for fun or instruction.

Embed is a way of adding a video to a website. Rather than sharing the link they embed the video on their site so viewers can remain on the website. The blogger hopes the viewer will use social bookmarking on their site rather than the video site.

Social bookmarking is a way of saving links to a web page. This can be for that person to remember or to share with others. This information can go on a Feed.

Feed is a web page that provides a summary of the latest information from a particular website. The feed is updated on a regular basis and provides readers with a couple of sentences and a link should they want more information. These may also be sent to various social networking sites to keep current information.

While this is far from a comprehensive list of terms used in social media and networking this can help you keep up with conversations. Reading these terms may actually put you ahead of some of the people who use them without knowing their meanings.