Social Media in 30 Seconds

Digital Marketing · By On · 72 Comments

If you’ve ever had a hard time explain­ing “Social Media” to your fam­ily (or your col­leagues) here’s a lit­tle graphic that illus­trates the dif­fer­ence between Social News, User-Generated Con­tent, and Net­work­ing sites.

UPDATE: You can now click on the image below to down­load the file. Or find it on SlideShare.

Cat­e­gories of Social Media:

  • Social News sites allow peo­ple to post and vote upon news or other con­tent they con­sider noteworthy.
  • Social Net­works con­nect friends to each other with pic­tures, sta­tus updates, and other applications.
  • User-Generated Con­tent is found on sites where users can upload con­tent and make it pub­lic. UGC also includes for­mats like com­ments, rat­ings and reviews, and other feed­back mechanisms.

So here are a cou­ple of over­laps that this graphic illustrates:

  • Blogs have strong char­ac­ter­is­tics of all three of these cat­e­gories. Their con­tent is gen­er­ated by users, can have news value, and is often viewed by a net­work of followers.
  • Twit­ter is a col­lec­tion of net­works that fol­low each other’s brief sta­tus updates, to whom it is con­sid­ered noteworthy
  • RSS, (Really Sim­ple Syn­di­ca­tion) allows a net­work of sub­scribers to receive new or updated content.

This model was orig­i­nally pre­sented in a webi­nar devel­oped with Chris Ben­nett of 97th Floor, and has slide if you’d like to share it with a friend.

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  • bob s

    where can i get the .pptx file you men­tion in this article?

    “This model was orig­i­nally pre­sented in a webi­nar devel­oped with Chris Ben­nett of 97th Floor, and has an ani­mated pptx slide if you’d like to share it with a friend.”

  • http://blogs.omniture.com/author/wfunk Wes Funk

    Hi Bob,

    I just emailed it to you. If any­one else wants it let me know.

  • asparre

    Inter­est­ing and help­ful illus­tra­tion! Thanks.

    I’m just won­der­ing if RSS really fits into this pic­ture. Basi­cally giv­ing you a noti­fi­ca­tion when a web­site is updated with new con­tent, I’d rather call RSS a tech­nol­ogy SUPPORTING social media but not group it along with actual social media. Fur­ther­more, RSS sub­scribers don’t need to form “a net­work of sub­scribers” (in the sense that the sub­scribers are in any way inter­con­nected.) It’s more a one-to-many technology.

  • Swatz

    Hi,

    I too would like to received the pptx file.

    Regards,
    Swati

  • http://www.lbi.com Paul

    Hi, I’d like to get the the pptx as well :-) Love the social media overview image.

  • Jeff Mat­tan

    Remove the word “social” from the graphic and you’re left with “news”, “net­work­ing” and “user-generated con­tent (ugc)” and I think you’ve got a win­ner. By men­tion­ing that peo­ple can share what they want to, you auto­mat­i­cally cover the social aspect and make it eas­ier to under­stand and explain.

  • http://blogs.omniture.com/author/wfunk Wes Funk

    Thanks for the comments–

    Re: asparre’s “won­der­ing if RSS really fits”

    You make an excel­lent point, because unlike the other logos in the graphic, RSS is not a web­site, but a tech­nol­ogy. I chose to include it because it cov­ers another cat­e­gory of sites (RSS read­ers and aggre­ga­tors) or tech­nol­ogy that sites use as part of their dis­tri­b­u­tion strat­egy. And yes, that is a one-to-many rela­tion­ship, though indi­vid­u­als can pub­lish what sites they “follow”.

    Thanks again for the excel­lent feedback.

    –Wes

  • http://www.phion.com Kurt

    Hi,

    could you please sent me te .pptx file? Thanks and Regards Kurt

  • Panks

    Could you please email me the .pptx file men­tion in this article?

    thanks

  • Swap­nil

    Hi Wes, Can you send me the .pptx please? Thanks!

  • http://nascarcollectibleshop.com Nascar Shop Scott

    Unfor­tu­nately (or for­tu­nately, if your com­pe­ti­tion is not up on its impor­tance), social media is not rec­og­nized as the pow­er­fully effec­tive tool that it is for gen­er­at­ing higher rank­ings in Google. I hope it stays that way!

  • http://gpgenerate.com Steven Page

    I would also like a copy of the pptx file. Thanks.

  • http://www.entertainmenteconomy.blogspot.com Kam-Au

    Wes could you send me a copy of that ani­mated slide? Thanks.

  • Thomas Rafels­berger

    The .pptx would be great :) . Thx! Stu­dent from Austria.

  • http://www.marketingoc.com Brian

    Seems like a good work­ing exam­ple of social media would be to post the pptx file on scribed or docstoc

  • http://www.marketnavigators.ca LizG

    Hi Wes,
    I’d like the file and will re-post on my blog with links to you, too.

  • Alberto

    I too would like to received the pptx file.

    Regards,
    Albert

  • Anna

    I teach an E Mar­ket­ing class and this graphic and expla­na­tion is a great way to explain these stu­dents these concepts.

    Can I get a .pptx file as well to use in my class?

  • Keith Reed

    The .pptx would be great!

  • Keith Reed

    The .pptx would be great Thx!

  • http://www.assuranthealth.com Amy

    Wes,
    Great illus­tra­tion. Would it be pos­si­ble to obtain a copy of the .ppxt file?
    Thanks,
    Amy

  • http://www.decisionmakermedia.com Bev­erly Parenti

    Please send me a copy of the .pptx. Great illus­tra­tion. Thanks for mak­ing this succinct.

  • http://www.cameronthomson.com David Plant

    Wes, would you be kind enough to send me the pptx as well? Thx. DP

  • http://blogs.omniture.com/author/wfunk Wes Funk
  • Kathryn

    This is a great lit­tle dia­gram. While it sim­pli­fies the many cat­e­gories of Social Media it helps to have a con­text for reference.

  • Steph

    Hi, I would like to receive the .pptx as well. Thanks!

  • Sally

    I would like the pptx file also. Much appreciated!!

  • http://WWW.LITEROCK105FM.COM Lisa

    I’d like the ppt slide too. It will come in very handy. thanks

  • http://www.workforcetrends.com Ira S Wolfe

    Please send me the pptx file. Thank you!

  • Ste­van

    Hi Wes, Can you send me the .pptx please? Thanks!

  • http://www.designworldonline.com Scott

    doesn’t show LinkedIN, Twit­ter is not social news, word­press is an open source web plat­form that is not only used for blog­ging more in a CMS cat­e­gory, all in all, good idea, but defi­antely needs to be ironed out

  • http://codebynumbers.solutionworks.net Rudi Shumpert

    Great sim­ple explanation.

  • Don­aven

    I’d like the pptx file as well please. thank you.

  • http://www.davidperry.com Andres Acosta

    Now that iGoogle has social net­work­ing func­tion­al­ity and fea­tures it would be a great addi­tion to the Social Net­work­ing cir­cle. Great dia­gram, thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.parsonssc.com Tracey

    Hi Wes,

    I would also love the .pptx.

    Best,

    Tracey

  • http://ehealthforum.com Marc

    I would like to receive the .pptx as well. Thanks!

  • http://www.epiar.com Ken

    I’d like to look at the PPTX file as well plase.

  • http://www.tmng.com debby

    I would like the pptx file as well Can you please for­ward to me?

  • Greg

    Thanks and would also like the pptx, or you could post on slideshare?

    • http://blogs.omniture.com/author/wfunk Wes Funk

      Hi every­one. Yes, the slide is on slideshare (see the link in the post) or you can sim­ply click on the image and down­load the Pow­er­Point. Thanks!

  • Dorothy Fisher

    Please send me a copy of the pptx file. Thanks!

  • Annette Kracht

    I’d like the pptx file please too! Thank you!!!

  • Vir­ginia

    Please send the ppt. Thanks for sharing.

  • Russ

    I would like the pptx file too.

  • Stepheny May­ers

    I really Like, and appre­ci­ate the attempt here to put social net­work­ing into some struc­ture that helps the lay­men come to grips with it; but I can’t help but won­der if such com­part­men­tal­is­ing is some­what out­dated? One rea­son sim­ply being by the rapid nature of devel­op­ment that is increas­ingly blur­ring the land­scape, bring­ing about a greater con­ver­gence. in short, it’s note merely the tech­nol­ogy that deter­mines how it is cat­e­gorised, it is how the user chooses to use it. E.g. If I cre­ate a news broad­cast­ing chan­nel on Youtube, does that still leave Youtube out on a limb in the UGC cat­e­gory? Surely the sim­plest way to explain SM is to say it’s about an unlim­ited num­ber of peo­ple shar­ing and hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions through con­tent and enablers i.e. tech­nol­ogy — of which the above are examples?

  • Stepheny May­ers

    Hi — I posted a blog ear­lier in response to Social Media in 30 Sec­onds, please can this not be pub­lished, it was more of a per­sonal ques­tion to Wes born out of an ongo­ing debate between the dig­i­tal brand and comms mar­ke­teers and web devel­op­ers in my com­pany. Many thanks!

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  • http://www.pubicworksagency.com Car­los V. Roman

    This is a great illus­tra­tion of the social media types. I’ve seen larger con­fus­ing ones but at least you have cov­ered the major play­ers. I have seen and used a com­bi­na­tion of the 3 cir­cles with back links, embed­ded con­tent, plug-in appli­ca­tions and the such. For exam­ple, we have sim­i­lar Facebook/MySpace fea­tures with a Twit­ter plug-in while users can share YouTube videos, cre­ate blogs and RSS feeds. These are all fan­tas­tic tools to pro­vide users who join social media web­sites. Social media also implies “friends and fam­ily” or B2C. I would even­tu­ally like to see more infor­ma­tion on B2B and B2G type websites.

    Thanks & Regards,

    Car­los V. Roman, Founder
    Pub​lic​Work​sAgency​.com
    http://​www​.pub​lic​work​sagency​.com

  • http://impre.com Soizic

    Nice graphic and sim­ple expla­na­tion — would love to get the PPT pre­sen­ta­tion too!
    Tx!
    –S

  • Brian

    I would like the pow­er­point as well please. Thanks!

  • http://www.spineuniverse.com Bill Paquin

    Would love the pptx… Thanks

  • http://www.netLZ.com P Birn­baum

    Very clearly stated. Even the experts get tripped up from time to time and this expla­na­tion keeps it all straight.

  • Hugh

    Nicely done. Thank you for shar­ing this.

  • http://www.familydollar.com Lucy Baratta

    can I get a copy of the .pptx file you men­tioned in this article?

  • http://www.gilliganondata.com Tim Wil­son

    I like the sim­plic­ity of the pic­ture! Brian Solis took a cut at a more com­pre­hen­sive “Con­ver­sa­tion Prism” a year or two ago that dives a lit­tle deeper — I’ve used it in pre­sen­ta­tions to talk through the con­tin­uum of all of the tech­nolo­gies (and to show how many there are). http://​www​.bri​an​so​lis​.com/​2​0​0​8​/​0​8​/​i​n​t​r​o​d​u​c​i​n​g​-​c​o​n​v​e​r​s​a​t​i​o​n​-​p​r​i​sm/

  • http://www.colloquy.biz MC

    Nice work with a tough “assign­ment” How­ever, I don’t know that I com­pletely agree in that I don’t believe that that Twit­ter for exam­ple is just social news. Although short-winded, peo­ple DO use it for social net­work­ing and user-generated con­tent to a cer­tain degree.

  • http://www.lenser.com carol worthington-levy

    i tried to down­load the pptx from click­ing on the image but it’s com­ing out as all code. if you can email me the pre­sen­ta­tion that would be awe­some. we’re try­ing to help clients find a good bal­ance between the proac­tive mea­sur­able things they’re doing, and new media. cheers — c

  • http://manchesterarndale.com Sue

    I would like to receive the .pptx as well. Thanks!

  • http://www.lfg.com Joan

    Please send .pptx. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!

  • george

    Would love the pptx… Thanks

  • deb­bie

    I would like a copy of the pre­sen­ta­tion too. Thanks

  • Car­olyn

    pptx for me too, please & thanks!

  • http://kineticmg.com Dana

    Very nice–this helps. Please send the .pptx file. Thank you!

  • http://www.isecuremynet.com Edgar

    I too would like to received the pptx file.

    Thanks,
    Edgar

  • Fred

    can u pls send me the .pptx also?
    Fred

  • http://leonspencer.com Leon

    I’d like to get a copy of your ani­mated slide as well.

    THX!

  • LiY

    Hi Wes, could you send me a copy of PPT. Highly appre­ci­ate it!!!

  • http://www.tweetjobs.net James Mayes

    Love the clar­ity — miss­ing the pro­fes­sional though — LinkedIn, etc.

  • http://www.rheem.com Laura But­ler

    I would like to received the pptx file too.
    Thanks,
    Laura

  • Lar­isa

    Would love a copy of the pptx as well .. tried to “down­load” it but all it gave me was a bunch of XML files?? Thank you!

  • Shan­non Searing

    Thanks Wes, great visual for us to use. Where would you fit LinkedIn into the pic­ture, Social News?

  • http://Impactinteractions Betty

    This is more con­fus­ing for the first time, never been there, do not know how it works per­son! And, you gave them no good rea­son to use social media.

    But, I did learn the acronym RSS stands for Really Sim­ple Syn­di­ca­tion. TX!