1. technology and computing
2. internet technology
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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.