CONTENTS
What is Social Media? For the benefit of our clients to familarise themselves with the online space, Edelman Digital has assembled some of the best learning materials from
Select a topic to jump directly
around the web on social media and web 2.0. The purpose of this note is to
to its contents:
help ensure that we’re all using the same "working vocabulary" of basic online
Blogs
technologies. Please do try spending 60-90 minutes with the contents, and trying out the hyperlinks is a must!
Message Boards RSS In Plain English Social Networks Tagging Social Bookmarking Photo Sharing Video Podcasting Microblogging
Blogs An Introduction Here's a short video that explains what blogs are all about. According to the 2008 Technorati State of the Blogosphere, 13% of all blogs are published in Asia. Free online tools allow you to search blogs for related keywords or find out how many posts are linking to a specific URL. See who has been talking about Edelman recently through Google India Blog Search and Technorati. You can
Search
also check out an overview of trends and comparisons through Blogpulse and
Wikis & Wikipedia
Icerocket (Note that a full analysis takes time—one keyword or one engine by
Mashups
itself is nowhere near comprehensive).
Virtual Worlds
In addition to Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan’s blogs, feel free to see what
Questions?
Feel free to contact us. Varun Gambhir: varun.gambhir@edelman.com
Infosys’s Mohan Babu, Rediff.com’s Ajit Balakrishnan or HCL’s Vineet Nayar
have been blogging about.
Message Board Search Online Communities Were Around Long Before "Web 2.0" Message Boards (also referred to as "web forums," "discussion groups" and "bulletin boards") have been in existence as long as there have been online communities for decades. There are a few basic characteristic behaviors within message boards: Close knit communities that value privacy Welcome and encourage anonymity Semi-private communities, where registration is often encouraged
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This is a great place to start locating brand enthusiasts. BoardReader can also be used to search for and graph keyword comparisons. Popular Message Board communities in India include oktatabyebye.com for travel related queries, pagalguy.com for education, burrp.com for food and nightlife, and mouthshut.com for consumer reviews and complaints.
RSS In Plain English Content Becomes Free From Its Form RSS (or "Really Simple Syndication") helps bring the Web to its users, making it more shareable and consumable (and thus increasing search engine optimization). This video from CommonCraft explains the technology, how it works and why it's necessary. RSS can be found in: Blogs Social Networks Photo sharing sites Widgets (Online and Desktop) Mainstream media sites Almost anything that deserves an Internet connection To try RSS for yourself, try registering to a feed reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines and subscribing to a few feeds that interest you.
Tagging At the Core of Social Sharing Tagging (also called folksonomy) allows content creators and the general public to collaboratively categorize content online with short (usually one word) keyword descriptions. Tags make content more findable, increasing search engine optimization, or weight content into tag clouds, which may offer some insights into which topics are currently the most popular. Tagging is central to multi-media sharing, blogs, social bookmarking, photo sharing and other web tools. To give you a few examples of the benefits of tags, you can search the Flickr Map for photos that have been geotagged by location or use the wisdom of the crowds to find the most popular recipe sharing sites.
Social Networks Tying Us Together by Common Interest Popular local social networks in India include ibibo, Fropper and BigAdda, while international competitors include Orkut, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster and MySpace. There are two basic types of social networks Captive: Destination sites where friends and friends-of-friends congregate
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Open: Distributed communities of shared interests and passions Often certain products or brands develop cult followings. If a product, brand, on even an individual enjoys such a following, a dedicated social network can help bring all the enthusiasts together. Have a look at what Nissan Titan owners put up, or this social network exclusively for Apple Macintosh users.
Social Bookmarking Wisdom of the Crowds For a quick overview of social bookmarking, view the CommonCraft Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English. When you find interesting content online, social bookmarking allows you to save the link, tag it with relevant keywords and share it with others. Users may subscribe to a given bookmark tag or a particular user's bookmarks (e.g. Edelman del.icio.us bookmarks). This is a great way to post client or industry-relevant links for online communities and keep in touch with the "wisdom of the crowds."
Photo Sharing Connecting Amateur Photographers and Everyday People Photo sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa, Poco, Moobol, Yupoo, Fotolog and Bababian let you upload, tag, share and collaborate around photos. Look for photo sharing sites to ignite sharing amongst brand enthusiasts.
Video Beyond YouTube: Video Sharing, Video Podcasts and Vlogs (and how they work together) You hear a lot about "viral videos" gaining popularity through sites such as You Tube and In.com and you probably even hear the question, "How do we make this video viral?" However, "viral" is an outcome, not a strategy. While certain things work better than others, even the experts cannot really claim to predict what will take off. Also be aware that videos sometimes go viral for negative reasons. Vlogs (or video blogs) are video journals. These are good for content that is of entertainment, journalistic or educational quality. Properly formatted video content can also be wrapped in an RSS feed and published as a podcast. Examples from India include online videos from IDBI Fortis Bondsurance, OKtatabyebye.com, Tata Sky + or Reliance Mobile. Also, Satyam’s newly appointed board recently used YouTube to communicate with their employees.
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Podcasting Time-shifted Audio and Video on Demand Podcasts use RSS to deliver multimedia on a subscription basis, allowing the latest "episode" to go directly to users (such as automatically downloading to iTunes on launch). For a basic understanding of podcasting, check out Podcasting in Plain English. As a medium, podcasting didn't take off as many predicted, largely because it's probably the most misunderstood social media vehicle. Nevertheless, see how Wells Fargo, USA is able to brand its Advantage Funds by delivering journalistic quality content as a podcast. Edelman has done podcasts for Butterball, Scott's and others.
Microblogging Telling a Story Through 140 Characters Micoblogging takes short-form inputs (e.g., IM and text messages) and serves them up as a blog. Microblogging is an emerging form of communication, exemplified by the likes of Zuosa, Fanfou, Jiwai, PlayTalk, Twitter and Yammer, which provides a platform for employees within a company to communicate. The messages can be public or private. For more on microblogging, view the CommonCraft Video: Twitter in Plain English. Monitoring microblogs is a great way to keep up on the pulse of the community attitude towards your brand or industry. Check out Twitter Search, TweetScan and Flaptor to explore conversations in Twitter. Check out how Dell is doing using Twitter to communicate with customers. For more, check out this list of companies engaging on Twitter.
Search Insights and Measurement While Yahoo is the most second most popular search engine in India, Google, the search market leader, can also be used to examine search trends for measurement and insights. Check out this Google Insights for Search graph comparing volume of searches for Edelman compared to a few competitors.
Wikis & Wikipedia Collaboration and Knowledge-Sharing Any registered user can edit any document at any time using a wiki. Check out our very own Edelwiki. These changes are tracked and often monitored, and have been a matter of debate in terms of company participation. Wikipedia, the controversial encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has caused problems with some companies that were caught editing their own entries. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, offers ways in which companies and PR firms should engage with the Wikipedia community.
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It's important not only to know the points-and-clicks of various community sites, but the expected rulesof-engagement and terms-of-service.
Mashups Hybrids of Web Applications Mashups involve taking the data from one or more data sources to generate a third. Flickr: Tag Galaxy, Tagnautica, Spellr, Colr Pickr Flickr + Yahoo Maps: Flickr Map Google Maps: Findbyclick, HealthMap, Walk Jog Run Here’s a mash-up from Zoomtara, a recent addition to the online travel booking space, put out on Facebook – India Dekha.
Virtual Worlds Simulated Environments Virtual worlds, including HiPiHi and NovoKing are online worlds where people either create new identities or digitize ones they already have via avatars.