A social website is any site that invites people to participate by publicly sharing their thoughts, feedback, opinions, links and any content they’ve created. It also encourages them to share their experiences with friends or colleagues, whether on the site or beyond, and makes it easy to do so.

The elements of the social web, start here

Blogs

A brand without a blog is a brand with nothing to say.  If you’re just starting out on your social web journey, start here.

Ratings and reviews

Feel the fear and do it anyway! A few years ago, letting people rate and review content and products looked like sheer madness. Now it’s practically a default setting.

Forums and expert panels

Making connections. Running a forum on your site is a big step towards an all-singing, all-dancing social web experience. But it’s best not to think about a forum as a way to create a community. Instead, it’s a way to serve a community that’s already there, eager to link up and share their thoughts.

Social bookmarking & favorites

The new web utility. If you make it easy for them to bookmark your pages, you’re also making it easy for them to promote your site and boost its search engine rankings. Adding social bookmarking is too easy not to do.

To read about all the elements of the social web and how to get there, download "The social website primer".