Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman

12.1. What Constitutes Social Media?

You can find plenty of complex definitions of social media on the Web, but I define the term simply as collaborative user-generated online content. Social media technologies and techniques enable people to author content and share experiences, knowledge, insights, opinions, and perspectives with one another.

Various Internet innovators are constantly devising new technologies and techniques for generating social media, so any list of social media tools is likely to be incomplete as soon as it is written. However, the following list covers some of the more popular social media technologies and sites:

• Discussion forums: Discussion forums, message boards, and bulletin boards have been around much longer than most other types of social media sites. They cover every topic imaginable, from caring for your car to training your dog (or cat) to knitting socks. Here people can share their passions, ask and answer one another's questions, and get connected.

• Blogs: Short for Web log, a blog is an online publication of one's personal thoughts, experiences, and insights presented in reverse chronological order that allows visitors to respond to each post with their own comments. As with most things on the Internet, businesses now tap blogging for commercial use. The popularity of blogs combined with their ease of use make them a perfect social networking tool for corporations. For more about blogging, refer to Chapter 11, "Blogging Your Way to Credibility." ...