Social Media
Guidelines and glossary
We carry responsibility for our staff, but first and foremost each co-worker is responsible for himself!
Clients as well as business partners make more and more use of the new possibilities offered by the internet, to exchange information and views and to search for appropriate solutions. The active use of social media offers many opportunities, but also harbours certain risks both for our staff and for the company. It is for this reason that the bank has decided to provide its staff with some guidelines for the use of social media. You can find them here (PDF).
Account
The terms account and profile are sometimes used synonymously. Strictly speaking, an account is however simply the authorisation to access a system or portal, whereas a profile is constituted by the sum of the uploaded data and settings (for example all personal details, pictures and videos of a user on facebook plus the privacy settings).
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App
In general this term is used to describe any kind of application software. By now it does however mostly mean applications for modern smart phones and tablet PCs, which can be purchased via an online shop integrated into the operating system and are easily installed directly on the smart phone. Examples for these online shops are among others the App Store by Apple, Windows Phone Marketplace by Microsoft, Android Market by Google, Nokia’s Ovi Store, AppWorld by RIM for Blackberry devices and PlayNow by Sony Ericsson or Samsung Apps.
Blog
(Short for the hybrid word „weblog“ which means the same) This is a kind of diary which is kept and published online by a “blogger”. An example is the lawyer blog by Udo Vetter (www.lawblog.de). There are also blogs that are maintained by several bloggers (such as the Tagesschau editors’ blog at blog.tagesschau.de). Blogs are often linked to each other with a “blogroll”. The authors of blog entries tend to categorise these in order to create clusters by topics. Blogs can be online diaries by individuals, but also by companies and institutions. In the latter case this is called a corporate blog.
Corporate Blog
A corporate blog is the blog of a company. Normally the entries are posted by members of staff. A corporate blog can follow different objectives, such as social media marketing or the creation of a further service channel.
facebook
An internet platform operated by Facebook Inc. which allows users to establish social networks free of charge. Members create profiles into which they can upload pictures, videos and other content. Networks are established by means of virtual friendship links. If a user publishes news, these can be read by the virtual friends. Beyond this the portal offers many more functions, such as a message and a chat function.
flickr
An internet platform which is part of Yahoo and on which users can upload their photos and videos. Other functions include image editing, the commentary function or the organisation of large amounts of images.
Microblogging
A term used when the entries of a blog are limited to the number of characters normally contained in a text message. An example of this is the tweets on twitter, which can be no longer than 140 characters.
Newsgroup
An online forum in which users exchange information about a range of topics. An entry in a newsgroup is called message or posting. The users exchange information through questions and answers that appear like an online dialogue. This is the main difference to a wiki, where this is less pronounced.
Podcast
(Hybrid term, from iPod and broadcast) Multimedia content, mostly audio or video, that is regularly made available online by individuals, companies or institutions and that users can subscribe to.
Profile
In the context of social media the profile of a user is the total amount of data and settings that he/she has uploaded/made on a specific social media platform. A facebook profile for example consists of personal details, pictures, videos and privacy settings.
Smartphone
High performance mobile phone with a significantly increased range of functions compared to conventional mobiles. A smart phone can be used to access and upload internet content or to install applications (“Apps”).
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Social Bookmarks
Links published online, which users use to indicate interesting websites and to exchange these websites among themselves. Internet portals such as Mister Wong (www.mister-wong.de) or Delicious (www.delicious.com) have specialised in social bookmarks. Users can publish their bookmarks on these portals; other users can see these and take them into their own collection.
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Social Media
General term for many forms of communication through which the internet is currently being used. Social media includes digital media, technologies, portals and also the user behaviour that aims for the creation of networks (social networks) and the lifting of the separation between consumers and producers of contents (user generated content). The term is more and more used instead of the buzzword Web 2.0, which essentially means the same. Companies and freelancers using social media often concentrate on social media marketing and social media monitoring.
Social Media Marketing
Participation of companies, freelancers, institutions, etc., in the use of social media in order to reach customers and potential customers on the internet. This can occur in the context of different objectives such as to strengthen the brand or to improve own products through the suggestions of users.
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Social Media Monitoring
The constant observation of social media content. Companies or institutions often monitor social media in order to keep track of their reputation among internet users.
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Social Networks
Online networks that users create between among themselves in order to exchange information and any kind of data. The most well-known portals which German users use to establish such networks are facebook, XING and studiVZ.
Tweet
A post on the platform twitter. Tweets can be no longer than 140 characters. Since the posts are consequently much shorter than in blogs, this is called microblogging.
twitter
An internet platform operated by Twitter Inc. where users publish SMS-like messages, so-called tweets. An example is the twitter platform of Gallinat-Bank (www.twitter.com/gallinat_bank).
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User Generated Content
Contents on the internet that were made available by users. User Generated Content appears in many shapes and forms, such as commentaries in blogs, posts in newsgroups and profiles in social networks.
Web 2.0
Buzzword intended to express the emergence of a “new version of the internet” in that a version number is added as with software products. What it expresses is that the internet is changing and evolving: whilst the more static Web 1.0 allowed users to mostly consume content, the dynamic Web 2.0 is shaped by the creation of content by users (User Generated Content). The term is however disappearing whilst “Social Media” is more widely used.
Weblog
The same as a blog.
Wiki
(Hawaiian wiki = "quick") Information that is created and uploaded by many different users and then made available on a central platform. Often, the purpose of a wiki is the management of knowledge. The most famous example is the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org).
XING
XING is an internet portal operated by XING AG where users can cultivate contacts and network. Unlike with facebook, the emphasis is on business contacts and topics. For example, many XING users upload a CV on their profile or display information about their skills. Another focus is on the discussion of business/career topics in open or closed user groups. Another example of such a portal is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com).
YouTube
An internet platform, owned by Google Inc. since 2006. On YouTube, web users can view videos uploaded by other users, rate these or upload their own videos.