Social Media and Internet Marketing Terminology Review

The Ultimate Glossary: 120 Social Media Terms Explained

I read this article last year for a class on Social Media, and wrote something on it, so I decided to look back on it and add onto my thoughts then, because I needed some inspiration for my blog since I was a bit burned out from the week. The author of this paper is Kipp Bodnar, a lecturer, blogger and marketer of HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, as well as at an Inbound Marketing Software company out of Cambridge, MA. The paper makes a few key points, but is organized as a glossary of 120 social media marketing terms, some simple and some more complex. I was surprised at the amount of terms he listed that I didn’t understand; all the definitions were provided by his article, since the nature of the article was to familiarize people with terms they don’t understand. Essentially, I found it as a prime example of how marketers essentially divide people into specific demographics to effectively target them for communication and advertising.

There are so many terms and services, some of which are known by name, but people don’t truly know what they actually are used for; examples of terms people see all the time are ones like RSS, though few people actually know what it is. A lot of articles give a lot of information and use these terms, without explaining them since they expect people to know what they are; they also leave very little room for interpretation, since they have a direct point they intend to make, or they are too vague. Although a glossary format doesn’t sound like a useful article, learning the precise definition of each word allows for interpretation, such as “inbound marketing.” Though I knew the concept I never actually knew what the idea was called; inbound marketing is a concept of making a trail that leads people to you, rather than the traditional concept of interruptive, or “outbound” marketing, that includes such outdated techniques as cold-calling, TV advertisements, and postal mail.

Where outbound interrupts a person, and tries to forcefully grab their attention, inbound marketing leaves a trail of interest through such things as “tag clouds,” which are keywords that a post is tagged with in order to make it easier for people searching for this keyword, or multiple keywords, to find your site. Search engine optimization is one I am familiar with, as it allows your page to come up more frequently when keywords of your tag cloud are searched. The idea of non-invasive marketing is a very radical concept, and one that is only relevant nowadays. Instantaneous transmission of data was impossible before the internet age, therefore those outdated, outbound techniques were necessary for advertisement, but now that people have the ability to choose and receive information immediately, it brings a whole new level to the marketing game, and update techniques are necessary.

It appears that the marketing world is learning; an old Bill Hicks skit about marketing, which has received a lot of views on Youtube despite his death in 1994, outlines the thoughts of nearly every person exposed to the old marketing techniques. He asks; “Is anyone here in the audience in marketing?..... If you are, then please, kill yourself.......put a gun to your head.....suck a tailpipe.....just do it.” These were the thoughts people had toward the intrusive ways marketers used to force their ways into the lives of people, as the interruptive behavior became exponentially more obnoxious, and these new techniques of inbound marketing through social media have totally changed the game. It shows some of the sneaky techniques that marketers use, essentially leaving breadcrumb trails back to their page. Every era, advertisers are able to evolve, and as sneaky as they may be, I hate to admit that they are actually necessary for these forms of communication to exist in general. I can’t lie; I hate the marketing aspect of media, but it helps to know the techniques that people are using to essentially brainwash you.