Here’s some light reading for you before you prep for holiday: a “social media dictionary” with a breakdown of marketing terms and phrases that you may or may not have heard before.
I remember when I was still in school, someone used the word “copy” in front of me for the first time. Like, “Hannah, can you go edit that copy to better reflect the point of the Facebook post?” WHAT?! I thought a copy was just a duplicate of something. Boy, was I wrong.
Anyway, these terms can help you out in your social media discovery journey. I’m here to help you. This could be an infinitely long blog post, but I’ve narrowed it down to the most important words and phrases you’ll need to know!
Here are some social media/marketing terms that will help your future on social media!
Algorithm – a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.
B2B – business-to-business (B2B) refers to commerce between two businesses rather than to commerce between a business and an individual consumer.
B2C – business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to commerce between a business and an individual consumer.
Blog – a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.
Chat – the online exchange of messages in real time with one or more simultaneous users of a computer network e.g. Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, iMessage, etc.
Content – the information and experiences that are directed toward an end-user or audience (this would be your posts, statuses, etc).
Copy – anything written by you or your company which is meant to attract customers to your business.
Digital Marketing – the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.
Digital Sales – the use of virtual channels to reach out to prospects, provide education, and ultimately offer a solution that uniquely meets their needs.
Direct Messages (DM) – a private form of communication between social media users that is only visible to the sender and recipient(s).
Engagement Rate – a metric that measures the level of engagement that a piece of created content (social media post) is receiving from an audience. It shows how much people interact with the content. Factors that influence engagement include users’ comments, shares, likes, and more.
Follower – someone who is tracking a particular person, group, organization, etc. on a social media website or application.
Friend – someone who is connected to a user on a social media platform, usually on Facebook.
Handle – the term used to describe one’s username on social media networks, expressed with an “@” symbol: @stullerinc
Hashtag – a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Twitter, to identify messages on a specific topic (ex. #HowIStuller, #DiamondRing, #MetalFashion).
Impressions – a way for advertisers to keep track of the number of times an ad (or social media post) is shown.
Geotargeting – the practice of delivering content to a user based on his or her geographic location. (Tip: If you have a jewelry store in Lafayette, LA, you may not want to target people in Omaha, NE!)
Link Preview – an automatic feature that displays how links will appear once pasted into a post on social networks.
Live Streaming – the act of delivering video content on social media in real time.
Meme – rapidly shared photos or videos reflecting a relevant cultural symbol or social idea, generally meant to mimic or mock.
Mention – any social media post that mentions a person by their user name.
Newsfeed (or “feed”) – the post-login homepage for social networks that displays posts and status updates from people and pages a user is connected to.
Podcast – an audio file made available for streaming or download on a digital device.
PPC – pay-per-click (PPC) refers to a type of Internet advertising in which the advertiser pays the ad publisher when the ad is clicked. Used to drive traffic to websites.
Retargeting – an online marketing technique allowing marketers to display ads to people who have visited their websites or are part of their contact databases.
SEO – search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process of optimizing web content so it can be indexed and found in popular search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
Selfie – a self-portrait typically taken using the front-facing camera of a digital photographing device, such as a smart phone, and usually shared on social media (bonus tip: did you know selfies showing off your product can produce higher engagement rates on your social channels?).
Social Media Monitoring – a routine observation of specific topics, conversations, and social media posts relevant to a business, person, or organization’s interests.
Subscribe – the action required to receive a particular user’s posts and other types of content on social media or websites.
Tagging – a special type of link connected directly to the tagged person’s page or profile, commonly used to identify social media users in photos.
The Cloud – an online data center, where users store and access information over the internet.
Troll – somebody who instigates negative activity on social media through their comments with the specific intention of provoking a reaction (Another bonus pro-tip: don’t engage with these people who are trolling your business!).
Unfollow – the act of ceasing to receive any further social media posts from a specific user.
UGC – User-generated content (UGC) is content such as photos, videos, blog posts, etc. created by users of digital media and shared on online platforms. Can include relevant hashtags. (We use #HowIStuller to track UGC!)
Viral – term used to describe photos, videos, or any other form of content circulated rapidly on the Internet.
Vlog – a blog post in video form, made popular by YouTube.
Webinar – an interactive web-based video and audio presentation, in which the host broadcasts the presentation to a group of people over the Internet. (Have you checked out our webinar series? Click here to learn more!)
Whew, that’s a lot of terms. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below!
