Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization

Social media is defined as the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, experiences, insights, and perspectives. The Social media sites classically use technologies such as podcasts, blogs, vlogs, message boards, and wikis to allow users to interrelate.

Web 2.0 is defined as a apparent second-generation of web-based hosted services and communities such as social-networking sites, folksonomies, and wikis which aim to make easy group effort and sharing among users.

1. Interactivity - Some of the tools and technologies you can implement to make your content more interactive include Blogging, RSS Feeds, Pod casting and Vidcasting, Wikis, Social Media News (Press) Releases, Social Media Newsrooms, Interactive tools such as Snapshots.

2. Sharing - Including your Blog, Podcast, or Vidcast in directories like Technorati, Google Blog Search, Podcast.com, or BlogPulse, Tagging your favorite blogs and Web sites on social bookmarking sites like Technorati and del.icio.us, Sharing and tagging your multimedia in Media Communities like Flickr and YouTube. Using Collage tools or Webcasting like SplashCast Media or blogTV. Creating and distributing Widgets or Mash-ups using services like widgetbox or Yahoo Pipes.

3. Collaboration - Commenting on others blogs. If you do a lot of commenting, a good way to track them is through comments. Contributing to crowd-sourced news aggregators like reddit, Digg, or Fark. Creating profiles on social or professional networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, or Facebook. Participating in microblogs like Twitter or Jaiku. Posting events in social calendars such as eventful.com, or upcoming.org. Becoming an avatar in a virtual world like Second Life or There. Participating in Communities or Forums like a Yahoo group, a Google group, or even starting your own using services like Ning.