I've been working quite a bit with the Sitecore CMS, and I'm now trying to learn Umbraco.
What is the best method/practice for creating non-page items in Umbraco? In Sitecore, I would create items outside the web site's content tree, and access them via the API in my controller.
As a practical example, I'm trying to create a set of social media items that I can display as a menu in different parts of the site. In Sitecore, I would create a "Social Media" template with a name, icon and URL create several items from it within a specific folder. The controller would then loop through these items and create a menu wherever I needed it. Alternately, the content for a promo block could be stored in a separate item and included by any page.
What's the best way to achieve this result with Umbraco?