How to Engage Customers through Social Media A Quick Start Guide for Avaya BusinessPartners + Plan Use this guide to learn how your business can benefit through Social Media efforts + Execute Follow steps to develop and manage your social presence online. Visit Avaya Partner Marketing Central at https://pmc.avaya.com for more Quick Start Guides and additional resources. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary How to Engage Customers through Social Media A Quick Start Guide for Avaya BusinessPartners What is social media? The term “social media” refers to a broad range of online networks, Web sites and applications that allow you to easily and publicly share information. Social media lets you create, distribute and publish your own content instantly (photos, job listings, product reviews, personal “status,” etc.) and also helps you discover what other people (who you may or may not know) have posted for all to see. Some examples of social media include: ++ Blogs: Short for “web log,” a blog is a type of Web site that features chronological “posts” or articles by an author, usually all loosely related to a topic or theme. ++ Microblogging: A super-condensed blog format that limits you to postings of just a sentence or two, a practice popularized by Twitter twitter.com. It is typically used to answer the question “What are you doing right now?” ++ Wikis: A Wiki is a collaborative Web site guidebook with all content editable by the users themselves. The most famous is Wikipedia—the free online encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. ++ Forums: Online forums are Web sites that allow users to create strings of conversation about certain topics, each person adding to the information previously posted. The Community for Avaya Users is a good example www.avayausers.com. ++ Social networks: Social networks are Web sites that enable you to create a personal profile, directly link to others to create a personal network and then freely share information within that network. Facebook www.facebook.com and LinkedIn www.linkedin.com are two popular examples. Navigate the Quick Start Guide: Introduction Social Media Basics How to Engage Customers through Social Media Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media 2 Get Started Glossary © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Introduction Leveraging social media as part of your larger marketing efforts can be a powerful way to amplify sales efforts and engage your customers. The ease of use of most social media means you can start quickly and see for yourself how others use social media to create visibility, encourage participation and manage growth and reputation. How social media can help your business Most social media began as tools for personal use—people blogging about their interests, college students forming personal networks, etc. As social media has grown in popularity, the business world has begun to see its potential for commercial use—companies blogging about their new product development and sales forces forming professional networks. As the market becomes more advocacy-driven, social media and its enabling of trusted conversation and recommendation will impact business more and more. In fact, 88% of communications decision makers say they use their peers as their #1 source of recommendations. Here are some broad ways social media can help your business: 1. Create visibility 3. Manage growth and reputation Hundreds of millions of people online use social media every day. Add to that, the inherently viral nature of social media, where everything can be shared instantly with others and you have a powerful tool for awareness. That’s not to say that social media involvement guarantees attention; more like it enables distribution on a level no other media can. Having a company profile on a few social networks, creating a professional network of contacts and creating content through blogging or similar means are all ways a company can create more awareness. As an open environment, social media presents unique opportunities—but also unique challenges to your company. After all, a critical comment can be posted and distributed by someone just as easily as a flattering one. By monitoring social media and your presence there, you can manage your reputation with both customers and employees, potentially addressing dissatisfaction or clarifying misinterpretation if needed. This type of monitoring and management has a big upside, since you can also intervene with prospects and customers through social media to improve close rates and shorten sales cycles. 2. Encourage participation Some marketers believe that you can use social media to accomplish all of the above with minimal investment. However, contracting with an agency or PR company specialized in social media is likely to require an additional investment. Also, social media is a time-intensive tactic that requires an investment from your people. See for yourself as you begin to explore the current Avaya social media efforts. In most cases, social media enables person-toperson interaction near real time. As a business, you can either participate directly in these interactions or learn from the conversations of others. Direct participation could include demonstrating expertise by posting links and opinions on breaking industry news, blogging about your company and inviting comments, or answering questions from customers or peers. Observing others could help you gain some insight about your competitors or customers that can shape your efforts, discover unmet customer needs or learn new uses for social media that might apply to your business. How to Engage Customers through Social Media This Quick Start Guide will explain and offer advice about the most popular social media resources and how you might use them for business, as well as how you might participate in existing programs from Avaya. This and other guides can be found at Partner Marketing Central: https://pmc.avaya.com. 3 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Social Media Basics You should learn the basics about social media for several reasons: your customers are already using them, Avaya is already using them and you can participate on whatever level makes you comfortable. You don’t have to be a super-user. However, we recommend that you know what’s out there, how it can affect your business and watch to see how it unfolds in the near future since it has already changed the web and marketing in profound ways. Popular social media examples: Blogs To learn more about blogging and to see some in action, visit: A blog (short for “web log”) is a type of Web site that allows individuals, groups, or businesses to easily and instantly publish articles, commentary, video and more. Typically, the entries are open for comment from readers (although you can also disable this feature), appear in reverse chronological order (newest posts first) and archived so you can access older posts. Business blogs are usually written more informally than other company marketing materials and are intended to inspire discussion, distribute compelling content and enhance overall company communication goals. To increase exposure, blogs can also enable widespread sharing of content to interested audiences by leveraging technology like Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Sample Blogs • Avaya Insights - www.avayablog.com • Technorati Popular: Top 100 Blogs - technorati.com/pop/blogs Competitor Blogs • Cisco Blog: The World of all things Cisco - www.ciscoblog.com Blog creation services • WordPress - wordpress.org Business blogs are used many ways, including sharing company perspectives on business topics, showcasing company and industry product development, demonstrating expertise with third party and proprietary content and more. How to Engage Customers through Social Media • LiveJournal - www.livejournal.com • Blogger - www.blogger.com • TypePad - www.typepad.com 4 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Social Media Basics LinkedIn LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals. As a LinkedIn member, you can also create and join groups focused on specific topics. Groups have their own discussion forums, job boards, announcements, and so forth. While some groups are open to all, other groups may require approval of the group manager. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts. Through your network you can: To learn more about LinkedIn and to see the Avaya company profile and related groups, visit: • LinkedIn home page - www.linkedin.com • Avaya Company Profile on LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/companies/1494?trk=ape_ s000001e_1000 • LinkedIn Group: Avaya DevConnect - www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=38814 ++ Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional ++ Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers and subject experts who come recommended • LinkedIn Group: Unified Communications (A non-Avaya group) - www.linkedin. com/groups?gid=47425&trk=anetsrch_ name&goback=.gdr_1248379105651_1 ++ Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems • LinkedIn Answers: Ask an industry question or answer one - www.linkedin.com/answers ++ Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners ++ Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings ++ Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals ++ Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company (source: LinkedIn) How to Engage Customers through Social Media 5 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Social Media Basics Twitter this is called “retweeting”, and is often indicated by including the phrase �RT @avaya’ in the message to acknowledge the originating source. Twitter messages (called “tweets”) can also contain hastags (e.g. #UC), which help organize content for searching. Started as a side project in March of 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to updates from friends. See what people are doing right now. (source: Twitter) There are dozens, if not hundreds of publicly available tools to help manage, organize, search and utilize Twitter users and messages. The basic premise of Twitter is that you can publish short updates (140 characters) from anywhere you have an Internet connection to all Twitter users. You also create a network of other Twitter users who explicitly follow you (receive your updates) and who you are following (receive their updates). With Twitter, you can demonstrate expertise by publishing insights and linking to content, interact with peers and customers and see what topics are inspiring the most discussion in your industry. To learn more about Twitter and “follow” Avaya Support: • Twitter home page - twitter.com • Follow these Avaya Twitter Accounts - @Avaya, @devconnect, @Avaya_Support, @avayasmallbiz • Related Twitter Accounts - @PaulDunay, @iguis, @cmcgugan, @ucexpo, @debkline, @agreenjay, @robertalexander and @AvayaGeek (non-employee) Part of the value of Twitter is the ability to disseminate, search and organize content across all Twitter users. A Twitter user is identified by an @ sign before their name (e.g. @avaya), and messages from one user are often passed along by their followers’— How to Engage Customers through Social Media 6 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Social Media Basics Facebook YouTube Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. (source: Facebook) Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the leader in online video and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on YouTube and across the Internet through Web sites, mobile devices, blogs and e-mail. (source: YouTube) While most visitors to YouTube simply watch and share videos, some business have discovered that creating and uploading company videos to YouTube is an effective way to get the word out. Video can be used to offer employees and/or customers executive presentations, training, events coverage, marketing campaigns and more. Keep in mind, however, that no proprietary information about Avaya should be shared on YouTube without permission. Facebook recently announced it now has over 250 million users. More than two thirds of its users are outside of college and its fastest growing demographic is those 35 years and older. By participating in Facebook, you can connect with existing and potential customers, create a network for your company, connect with Avaya and support our efforts and promote yourself within those circles. To learn more about YouTube and watch videos on the Avaya channel, visit: To learn more about Facebook and to visit the Avaya fan page, go to: • YouTube home page - www.youtube.com • Facebook home page - www.facebook.com • Avaya Interactive YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/user/Avayainteractive • Avaya Fan Page on Facebook - www.facebook.com/avaya To Be Continued Like most of the Web, social media is constantly changing. There are many other examples like Flickr for photography, Digg for news, epinions. com for product and service reviews and many more. We encourage you to explore social media and get comfortable with using them. That way, as your customers adopt social media and businesses find value in using them, you’ll be ready to determine how you might enter the social media space. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 7 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Your Customers And Social Media Social media has grown hugely over the last few years. So big, in fact, that people now spend more time in member communities (social networks) than they do with e-mail. Plus social networks are growing everywhere, country by country, with Brazil leading the way but with brisk growth in Germany, U.K. and Italy among others. So the world is adopting social media quickly. Here are some just a few examples of how that growth may impact you directly: ++ 88% of communications decision makers use their peers as their #1 source of recommendations. So they might be having conversations about you that you could at least observe if not influence. ++ More than 34% of Web users post opinions about products and brands on their blogs and over 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs. So existing and potential customers really are interested in what you have to say. ++ Facebook is the #1 social networking site in the top 10 when ranked by average time per person, with visitors spending an average of 4 hours and 33 minutes on the site in June 2009. So there is an opportunity for real and deep engagement with employees, customers and peers. ++ Nearly 60% of marketing and management professionals think social networking can significantly influence their company’s brand awareness. So social networking has proven its value as a marketing channel. It’s up to you to decide whether the time is right to add social media to your overall marketing mix. However, it’s clear now that when you’re ready, you won’t be alone. In fact, Avaya already has a solid presence across social media properties that you could learn from and use as a way to begin participating. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 8 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary How Avaya Uses Social Media Avaya recognizes the value of social media and actively participates in social networking, user forums, blogging and microblogging. Naturally, there are brand-related conversations happening that we don’t initiate, we want to be a part of those conversations and help to possibly bring our thought leadership into the discussion as well. Our objectives for social media participation will probably look familiar by now: ++ Increasing brand awareness ++ Generating demand ++ Demonstrating thought leadership ++ Showcasing innovation ++ Assessing competitive positioning ++ Encouraging self service Once you have your objectives, you need to evaluate which social media tactic is appropriate for helping you achieve those goals. The answer somewhat depends on your target audience but you can start to see the strengths and weaknesses of each vehicle once you understand what they offer. Some Examples: Blog: Avaya Insights Blog Online Community: Avaya fan page on Facebook A company blog can be a refreshing alternative to typical company information. Its format of relatively short, personal articles and open commenting give it a casual feel and give a human “voice” to the business. The Avaya Insights blog at www.avayablog.com features bloggers from across Avaya departments writing about subjects that interest them—and hopefully our customers. Facebook offers a compelling mix of profile customization, real-time status updates, content publishing (articles, photos, music, etc.) and social network interaction. It’s an ideal place for a company to aggregate information from various sources (company blog, Twitter, publications) and distribute it to a personal network. Visit the Avaya Facebook Company Page at www.facebook.com/avaya and become a fan of our work. Microblog: Avaya Twitter accounts Participating in current Avaya social media efforts is an ideal way to learn about social media. Follow us on Twitter. Become a fan on Facebook. Add your voice to our user forum community. As you participate and monitor what others are doing, you’ll start to see how social media can support your company, how Avaya can support you and how our social media relationships can build awareness and demand among our customers. Twitter’s limitation is its strength: sharing short, quick bits of information and following others who are doing the same. Twitter also has built-in search and third-party applications that help sort and collect “tweets.” Put it all together and you have a powerful customer service and brand/competitive monitoring tool. Follow these Avaya Twitter accounts to see it in action - @Avaya, @devconnect, @Avaya_Support, @Avaya_UC, and @Avayasmallbiz. User forum: Community of Avaya users Since users can introduce any topic and add to any conversation, user forums are an excellent way to elicit many opinions on a specific subject. The Community for Avaya Users at www.avayausers.com is like a help desk that offers product support not only from Avaya, but also among customers themselves. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 9 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Getting Started “We should have a blog.” Has anyone at your company ever said that? You may even have said it yourself. It’s understandable. The popularity and power of social media gets people excited. However, it’s just good business sense to start with strategy. You need to know what you want to accomplish so you can measure your effectiveness and adjust accordingly as you progress. The POST Method A few years ago, Forrester Research popularized the POST Method for formulating social media strategy. We’ve included a condensed version here for you to use to map your next move after participating with Avaya in our existing efforts. People (P) Strategy (S) Assess your customers’ social activities Plan for how customer relationships will change You need to do some research into your customers to find out what social media they prefer. It can be as simple as asking or as deep as independent marketing research, but either way, find out which social media your customers actually use before you begin. Now think about how your social media participation will affect your relationships with your customers. How will things be different? What will have improved? Put yourself into the future and look back—your strategy will reveal itself. Technology (T) Objectives (O) Decide which social technologies to use Decide what you want to accomplish We’ve shown you just a sample of all the different forms of social media. Not all of them are right for you. Once you’ve learned all you can about your customers’ behavior, your business objectives and your strategy, you can decide which social media can best help you achieve your goals. Do you want to learn from customers or teach them? Do you want to grow a large network or interact with a select few? Figure out which one objective is best for your company (and most achievable) and then how you will measure it. PEOPLE Assess your customers’ social activities OBJECTIVES Decide what you want to accomplish STRATEGY Plan for how customer relationships will change TECHNOLOGY Decide which social technologies to use How to Engage Customers through Social Media 10 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Getting Started Tips for social media “behavior” Like public relations, social media is a means to reach potential customers and influence their perception of your company and the Avaya solutions you sell. It can influence decisions and help generate new business. It can help you build and maintain a public perception of your company that is both positive and distinct from your competitors. (For more on public relations, see the Quick Start Guide “How to Implement Successful Public Relations Initiatives.”) If you’re ready to join in any of the existing Avaya social media efforts (or your own) and establish public perception of your company in that channel, here are some recommendations for successful interactions: Be a real person, not a company Define and adhere to your goals for social media The appeal of social media is the human interaction it enables. Even if you’re acting as an “official” representative of your company, you can still be yourself. Feel free to be casual and always be as transparent and truthful as you can. Deception in social media circles is unwelcome and often publicly criticized. You’ve taken the time to determine a strategy. Make sure to stick to it. As mentioned before, social media is in a constant state of change. Rather than trying a little bit of everything, focus on your goals and adjust your behavior based on them, not trends or popularity. Be realistic about your commitment Act like everyone can see everything you do This isn’t a “set it and forget it” proposition (in fact, none of your online efforts should be). A healthy social media presence, especially in social networks and blogs, requires you to regularly contribute and communicate. Answer questions. Update content. Be there if you’re going to be there. Remember, most social media is extremely public and highly visible—even more so when something becomes “viral” and is passed and posted from friend to friend. In an instant, content and comments can be distributed outside of networks and gain momentum outside of your control. Conduct yourself like you would in person and respond to any criticism with respect. Never contribute anything you wouldn’t want widely publicized. Again, it’s best to first monitor what others are doing and figure out where you should be and then consider how you can take advantage of the opportunities of social media. Distribute the “work” of social media throughout the company You might find it easier to have different people in your company be responsible for different social media activity (which should all be part of a unified strategy). For example, if an employee is already an active Twitter user, it might be easier for her to manage that than for someone new to learn it. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 11 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Getting Started None of these tips are meant to discourage you. Instead, we’re trying to give you the knowledge you need to succeed. Many companies—Avaya included—have embraced social media and found it to be a powerful ally for business growth. Feel free to start small, listen first and do what you’re comfortable doing. Remember, leveraging social media as part of your larger marketing efforts can be a powerful way to amplify sales efforts and engage your customers. The ease of use of most social media means you can start quickly and see for yourself how others use social media to create visibility, encourage participation and manage growth and reputation. Explore social media efforts with Avaya and see how we start conversations by distributing content and interacting with customers. Explore how the competition is using social media, and leverage their communities for competitive insight. And by all means, add your voice to the mix! Then, when you feel ready to establish yourself more formally in the social media space, use this guide to establish your objectives and strategy, decide which social media are best for you and put yourself out there in a professional and brand-building way. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 12 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary Glossary A Avatar A graphical image or likeness that replaces a photo of the author of the content on a blog. B Blog Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. (v.) To author a Web log. Other forms: Blogger (a person who blogs). Blogroll Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and Web sites that the blog author commonly references or is affiliated with. Blogrolls help blog authors to establish and build upon a their blogger community. In Web 1.0 terminology, a blogroll would be the equivalent of a list of hyperlinks on a personal Web page. Blogosphere Meaning all blogs, it is an expression used to describe the �world of blogs’. D Date-Based Archives The archives of a blog site, organized by time-stamp. Almost every blog will have some form of time-stamp and many archives are listed along the sidebar. Some list in weekly, but most on a month-by-month basis. E K Entry An individual post or article published on a blog. Each of these entries, while appearing in an index, are also web pages unto themselves. Event Blog A blog specifically launched as a companion to an event. F Facebook Facebook is a social networking Web site that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Feed aggregator In Internet technology it is software or a hosted application that collects feeds from various sources and displays it in a single consolidated view, either in a window on your desktop or in a Web browser. Also called feed aggregator or RSS aggregator. Folksonomy: The collective indexing by use of tags, labels or keywords by the consumers of the content. The tagging system of Flickr of Delicious are examples of this social indexing. H Hyperlink or Link A navigational reference to another document or page on the World Wide Web. Hyperlinks are specified as Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which takes the form http://www.avaya.com or http://<website>/<path to content> Embed To copy HTML from one Web site and paste it into another. Embedding is very common with videos and widgets. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 13 Keywords Descriptive words that summarize the contents of a piece of media for the purpose of making it easy to find in a search of the words. Web site designers use keywords in the background of the site so that when someone types that word into a search engine the Web site can be found. This process is known as a search engine optimization. L LinkedIn LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. M MicroBlogging A form of blogging allowing users to compose brief text updates and publish them. These messages can be submitted and received by a variety of means and devices, including text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, mobile device, MP3 or the web. MySpace The name of a social networking site (SNS) that consists of a network of member’s profiles, Web logs, photos, e-mail, forums, group and more. MySpace was founded in August 2003 by the Internet company eUniverse. O Open Profile When referring to social networking sites (SNS), the term open profile describes a dynamic user profile that can be openly shared on (or exported to) other SNS where the user is a member. Social networking sites that support open profiles would enable users to update their profile on one site and have those changes reflected on partnering sites. © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary R RSS Is the acronym used to describe the de facto standard for the syndication of Web content. RSS is an XML-based format and while it can be used in different ways for content distribution, its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. S Social Bookmarks A method for Internet users to store, search, organize and most importantly, share web pages. Two favorites are Delicious and StumbleUpon. For a great video on how social bookmarking works, check out CommonCraft’s Social Bookmarking in Plain English. Social Media Monitoring The act of monitoring a companies or competitor’s social activity across the social media landscape, including sources such as social media networks, microblogs, forums, etc. Social Network A social structure made of nodes that are generally individuals or organizations. A social network represents relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/ knowledge processing entities. Social Network Analysis Abbreviated as SNA, social network analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/ knowledge processing entities. The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes. SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships. How to Engage Customers through Social Media Social Networking Site Abbreviated as SNS a social networking site is the phrase used to describe any Web site that enables users to create public profiles within that Web site and form relationships with other users of the same Web site who access their profile. Social networking sites can be used to describe community-based Web sites, online discussions forums, chatrooms and other social spaces online. Social Software A type of software or Web service that allows people to communicate and collaborate while using the application. e-mail, blogs and even instant messaging are all examples of social software. T Tagging Commonly used in blogs, site authors attach keyword descriptions (called tags) to identify images or text within their site as a categories or topic. Web pages and blogs with identical tags can then be linked together allowing users to search for similar or related content. If the tags are made public, online pages that act as a Web-based bookmark service are able to index them. Tag cloud A tag cloud is a stylized way of visually representing occurrences of words used to described tags. The most popular topics are normally highlighted in a larger, bolder font. Visitors to a blog or site using a tag cloud, are able to easily see the most popular tags within the page — making it easy to discern the topics covered in one quick look. Thread A related line of conversation. A thread is a series of entries in a forum or discussion environment that are related. For example, in a discussion forum on education there may be a thread on how to improve K-12 learning and another on best practices for using a certain technique or tool. 14 TrackBack TrackBack is a type of peer-to-peer communication system that was designed to send notification of updates between two Web sites via a Trackback Ping. Ping in reference to TrackBack refers to a small message sent from one Web server to another. TrackBacks are useful for informing a Web site that you have referenced its Web site within your own Web site and is popular with bloggers. TrackBack was first released as an open specification in August 2002. Tweets Text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Twitter Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. U URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) describes the path to some piece of internet content, commonly available from a web browser. URLs takes the form http://www.avaya.com or http://<website>/<path to content> V Viral Something that designed to spread. Viral videos are created to be interesting and unique enough to cause the viewers to share them with their friends. Saying something is “viral” is like saying it has strong pass-along value. © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy. Introduction Social Media Basics Your Customers and Social Media How Avaya Uses Social Media Get Started Glossary W Wiki A collaborative Web site comprises the perpetual collective work of many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the Web site using a browser interface, including the work of previous authors. In contrast, a blog, typically authored by an individual, does not allow visitors to change the original posted material; only add comments to the original content. Y YouTube YouTube is a video sharing Web site on which users can upload and share videos. How to Engage Customers through Social Media 15 © 2009 Avaya Inc. Proprietary, use pursuant to the terms of your signed agreement or Avaya policy.
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