An online alphabet for the digital age…
The third and final installment to the 21st century glossary! Missed out on the first two? Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2…
QR Codes
Also known as Quick Response Codes, they are a great and innovative way to connect with your current and potential customers. QR codes can offer added value to you and your readers as they can be used to quickly lead your reader to further useful information by sending them to mobi-sites; they can be used as a quick reference to what your company contact details are – or you could just send them straight to a quick and easy contact form. They are also an easy way to give discounts, and make your advertising more interactive and interesting!
RSS Feed
This merely stands for Real Simple Syndication and are the channels used to read, view, or listen to items from blogs, podcasts, and other RSS-enabled sites without actually visiting the site! This is usually done by subscribing to a specific website or blog’s feed and then using an aggregator like Google Reader to view them. Feeds contain the content of an item in its most basic form as well as the article’s tags and categories, but excludes the design or layout of the actual web page. Once a user has subscribed to a feed, the content is delivered at regular intervals or usually whenever there is a new blog post.
Social Bookmarking
A great way to organise, store, manage, and search for bookmarks of resources online. Bookmarking enables users to search for links that pertain to the keywords that person is searching for. Save links to web pages that you want to remember and or share, and you can find bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, and via search engines as well. Social Bookmarking is a great marketing tool as it can help websites get quality link-backs, thereby increasing their SEO and website traffic.
According to eBiz, the most popular social bookmarking sites to date are Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Pinterest, BuzzFeed, and Delicious.
The next best thing since Facebook, Twitter boasts over 200 million users! A real-time microblogging site where you post, or tweet, short messages that consist of 140 characters or less, and follow what others have to say. It’s a great platform to use to share short snippets of information and follow like-minded individuals from industries that you are interested in, and to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world.
User-generated Content
Material that has been created by the public – for example, comments on blog posts, uploaded Youtube videos, and any form of interaction on a Facebook Page.
Visual Branding
It’s all about the visual in 2012! Pinterest images, infographics, and videos! A great way to capture and display your brand essence – especially Pinterest – on the newest and fastest growing networks! Infographics are a great way to visually represent information in a more exciting way using icons, graphics, and charts; thus making the information a lot easier to digest and therefore share!
Website
Since the rise of social media, it’s not enough for a company to just simply have a website nowadays! Starting a blog using a CMS (content management system) like WordPress that can integrate into your website is a great way to start, and then progress to the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – depending on your company and industry.
Another professional social platform that’s popular in Europe.
Youtube
A video-sharing website where you can upload, view, share, and comment on videos. You can also obtain the coding to embed the videos on your website or blog for free! Because it’s owned by Google, it’s another great platform to use in order to increase your SEO ranking.
Zzzz …
Something you will start lacking once the social bug bites … enjoy!
And thus we conclude The A – Z of the 21st Century! Do you have a few suggestions of your own to add to this glossary? Don’t be shy to share!
