The Internet is an incredible resource for real-estate and mortgage professionals but keeping up with an always-evolving online world can be a challenge. Sometimes the lingo alone can stand between successfully implementing a social-media strategy and being overwhelmed by widgets, avatars, and hashtags.
Here are some basic terms to familiarize yourself with …
Active Rain – The largest social network for real-estate professionals. Launched in 2006, Active Rain has nearly 200,000 members.
Avatar – The image, picture, or username a person uses to identify themselves on social-networking sites.
Badge – A linked image displayed on a blog that promotes a person’s profiles or participation on other social-media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter.
Blog – A regularly updated website or “web log” that allows a company or individual to post content and interact with readers through commentary, subscriptions, widgets, and syndicated RSS feeds.
Content – Content on any website, including text, pictures, video, and audio materials.
Dashboard – The administrative area on blogs and social-media sites that allows you to edit your information, manage comments, monitor traffic, upload files, etc.
Facebook – The largest social-networking site for individuals and businesses. Facebook has more than 500 million users.
Feeds (RSS Feed) – A program used by a website that allows the user to syndicate their content and provide subscribers with new blog posts and articles without requiring them to visit the site.
Forums – Online forums allow members of social-media sites to interact with other members by posting messages or questions on particular topics.
Groups – Communities within social-media sites that allow users interested in particular topics or activities to share information, posts, and messages with other members.
Hashtag – Used on Twitter, a hashtag is a keyword or phrase preceded by a “#” that helps organize posts, making them easier to find in Twitter searches.
Hyperlink – A navigational reference that embeds a link to a document or page on the Internet.
LinkedIn – A business-oriented social-media site for professional networking. Launched in 2002, LinkedIn now has more than 70 million registered users.
Micro-Blogging – A form of blogging that limits the amount of characters or words per post, such as Twitter.
Profiles and Pages – The pages on social-networking sites where a person or business displays their contact information, pictures, posts, and files.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of improving and increasing traffic to a website from search engines.
Sidebar – A column or columns along either or both sides of a blog’s main content area that includes widgets, contact and biographical information, links to previous posts and favorite sites, archives, badges, subscription information, RSS feeds, and more.
Social Media – Websites that provide communities with common interests to communicate and engage with one another online.
Subscribing – Signing up for a site’s feed, which automatically sends you new content from that site.
Threads – Messages or posts under a single forum topic or the comments and trackbacks of a particular blog post.
Trulia – A real-estate search engine and networking site that allows professionals to create business profiles and allows consumers to find listings, blogs, and real-estate information.
Twitter – A micro-blogging site where members post “tweets” or messages of 140 characters or less.
Widget – An application offered on social-media sites and blogs that performs a specific function allowing users to customize their profiles or blog.
Source materials here, here, here, and here.
Please check back with www.theibisnetwork.wordpress.com for future updates and additions to this glossary.
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Josh Millar / The Ibis Network / www.theibisnetwork.com
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This is great. Very easy to understand.
Love it! Ive been in the mortgage lending business for more then 15 years and am amazed of all the changes in how to contact business partners. thank you for the terms. I know my craft very well and am learning the ins and outs of social networking.
I have been blogging for about two years. This is a good list to help those who are new to social media get started.
Great information! I be sharing with co-workers.
This is Step One for anyone wanting to know more about social networking. Great post.
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