Social media marketing is constantly changing – new jargon is always being used by professionals and it can be confusing for those new to the industry. There are also plenty of terms that are regularly used incorrectly. To help you navigate through this, yellowHEAD has compiled a list of the most popular social media marketing terms, categorized alphabetically for your ease. This will help you understand the jargon being used and ensure you’re using terms correctly.

A

A/B Test : The A/B Test is a method of comparing two versions of digital assets against each other to determine which performs better.

Algorithm: An algorithm is a social media algorithm is the mathematical calculation that major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and SnapChat use to understand user habits and to customize their experience on the platform.

Analytics: Analytics are data from social media networks that marketers use to improve strategic business decisions.

API: API stands for Application Programming Interface, a software interface that allows two applications to interact with each other.

ART : ART (Average Response Time) is a customer service metric that measures the average time it takes a brand to reply to questions, comments, or complaints on social media.

Avatar: An avatar is an image or username that represents a person online, on digital platforms and social networks.

B

Bio : A bio is a short description that introduces a user’s online profile. Bitmoji: Bitmoji is a social media software that allows users to create personalized cartoon drawings, which can be posted on their various social media profiles.

Blog: A blog is an online journal that is frequently updated and intended for the general public. The term “blog” is derived from the words “web” and “log”.

Boost: Boost is the option to pay social media platforms to increase one of your existing post’s reach to your followers, a recommended audience, or a targeted audience. Branded Hashtags: A branded hashtag is a unique hashtag that is associated with a specific brand. This type of hashtag is often used to inspire people to talk about the brand on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram.

Brand Management: Brand management is a marketing technique that is used to increase the perceived value of a product or brand over time. Brand management includes methods such as ‘brand recognition’ and ‘brand awareness’.

C

Chatbot: A chatbot is an artificial intelligence software program that can mimic human conversation to provide customer service or answer questions automatically. Chatbots can be used on social media messaging apps to give customer support, answer questions, or even schedule appointments.

Clickbait: Clickbait refers to an attention-grabbing headline for an article that is intended to misleadingly drive website clicks, but has no actual relevance to the content on the landing page.

Clout: Clout describes an individual user’s media power or impact, as well as the amount of influence they are capable of wielding on a given platform.

Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing is the process of soliciting ideas, suggestions, information or content from an online community. User-generated content is a prime example of crowdsourcing through social media.

Collective Intelligence :Collective intelligence is the process by which a large group of individuals, harnessed through social media, gather and share their knowledge, data and skills for the purpose of solving issues.

Content: Content refers to any text, images, sounds, videos, and animations which are created by individuals or companies online. The meaning of “content” in social media refers to media that has been posted or shared with others.

Comments: Comments are a form of engagement on social media in which users reply to posts.

Community managers are the link between an organization and its audience. They create an authentic community among a business’ customers, employees, and partners by interacting with them online.

Conversion rates : Conversion rates are the number of visitors to a website who complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors.

CPC: (Cost Per Click) is the amount you pay for every person who clicks on your ad.

CTA: (Call To Action) is a statement contained on a button that encourages the audience to click and take a certain action.

CTR: (Click Through Rate) is the percentage of people who clicked on a link when shown the post, ad, or other piece of content click on it.

D

Dark Post: A targeted ad that hasn’t been published yet and doesn’t show up on the advertiser’s timeline, page, stories, or followers’ feeds. It only shows up in the feeds of the specific people who are being targeted.

Dark social : Dark social is a social media term that marketers and search engine optimization (SEO) experts use to talk about referrals to websites that are hard to track.

Digg : is a social content website that is run by its users. All of the content on Digg comes from users. Once you post something, other users can read it and “Digg” what they like best.

Doxing: is the act of putting private information about someone online without their permission.

Direct Message Marketing : marketing is another name for Direct Message Marketing. It is a business strategy that focuses on using direct messages (DMs) to build relationships and business projects in private.

Disquis: is a comment system and moderation tool that lets you add community management and social web integration to any site on any platform.

Disappearing Content: is something on social media that goes away after a certain amount of time, usually 24 hours (however there are a variety of time spans). Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and Facebook Stories are all examples of content that disappears.

E

Evergreen Content: Content that stays interesting and useful for a long time, like an evergreen tree.

Emojis are small cartoon pictures that people use in text messages and on social media. They are a big part of the way people talk on social media and are used to show how someone feels when they type.

Endorsement is when one LinkedIn user praises or “endorses” another user for one of their listed skills. It’s kind of like a recommendation.

Engagement Rate is a social media metric that shows how much your audience likes, shares, and comments on a piece of content.

Embed is a term for digital content that is shown inside another piece of digital content using tools for digital embedding.

F

Facebook Ads Manager is a tool for making, running, and analyzing paid campaigns on Facebook.

Feed is a list of all the new posts from social media accounts that a user is following.

Flickr is a social network where people can share photos online.

Follower: Someone who follows another user’s profile or page and gets updates. When people post content, many of them do so with the goal of getting more followers.

G

Games Done Quick is a Twitch series where gamers raise money for charity by playing video games for long periods of time. A lot of buzz is made about the events on Twitter.

Geotagging marketing is when geographical coordinates are added to online content based on where a user’s mobile device is in order to reach a local audience better. Geo tags can be added to a lot of different kinds of content, like videos, photos, and even QR codes.

Geotargeting is the process of giving visitors and customers different content or ads based on where they are. This can be set by country, region, city, zip code, organization, IP address, or other criteria.

H

Hangouts is a video conferencing tool made by Google that can be used to talk to coworkers, customers, and friends and share ideas. Hangout marketing

Hashtag is a word or phrase that starts with the number sign (#). It started on Twitter, but now most social media sites use it to find digital content about a certain topic.

I

Impressions: The number of people who saw a post, even if they didn’t click on it, comment on it, or do anything else with it.

Inbound social media marketing means customizing your social media experiences for the people you want to reach. This means doing research on users and making content that is interesting to them so that you can get their attention and turn them into paying customers.

Internet platform is a digital service that helps two or more online users talk to each other. Each platform can offer a wide range of features and services, such as app stores, search engines, social media, content creation, and more.

K

Keyword: A word that is important in a title or document and is used as an index to the content.

Klout was a site and app that measured how influential someone was on social media. Businesses were also able to find users with a lot of “Klout” and give them free products to promote in the hopes that it would make the brand look good. The word, which is sometimes spelled the old-fashioned way, “clout,” means how much power a person has.

KPI is a measurable value that shows how well a company is meeting its most important business goals.

L

Listicle: An article or other piece of writing that is set up like a list. Its name comes from the words “list” and “article.”

Like is a quick way to interact on social media. When someone clicks “like” on a post, it means they like it.

Link building is a type of search engine optimization in which website owners try to find ways to get other sites to link back to theirs. They do this in the hopes that it will help them rank higher on search engines.

M

Meme is a funny photo, image, text, or video that is copied from another user and slightly changed. Often, they spread quickly through social media.

Metrics are the data that are used to figure out how social media activity affects marketing campaigns and how much money a company makes.

Media analysis is the process of figuring out which kinds of media would be best for promoting a product or service. It thinks about how certain messages will be shown on different platforms and how the public might understand them.

Media Coverage is when a brand or its services and products are talked about in the news, on blogs, or in videos, for example.

Microblogging is a term used in social media to describe making short pieces of content for quick audience interaction. It is a mix of instant messaging and content creation that lets users make short messages that can be posted and shared online. Microblogging is popular on sites like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

N

Native advertising is a type of advertising that looks and works like the platform it’s on and fits in well with the rest of the content.

Newsjacking is the act of tying a brand to a current event to get more attention from the media and raise the brand’s profile.

O

Objectives: A marketing objective is a clear, measurable goal that tells you exactly what you need to do to reach that goal.

Online profile is the unique online identity that a user creates so that they can interact with other people in online communities. It has information about the user’s settings and preferences as well as personal information about them.

Online profiling is the process of gathering information about a user’s likes and dislikes and how they act so that a target audience can learn more about them.

P

PPC: Pay-per-click, advertising is a way to get people to visit websites. An advertiser pays a publisher when someone clicks on an ad.

PV – Page views. The number of people who go to a certain page.

R

Rate Buster is social media slang for someone who does too much and makes others look like they don’t do enough.

Reach is how many people see your content as a whole. Reach on social media is the number of people who have seen your content on a social platform. Reach is also slang for “Remember Everyone Affects Customer Happiness,” which is a phrase often used on social media.

Relevance Score: An ad’s relevance score is based on the positive and negative feedback its target audience is likely to give it. The more likely it is that people will like an ad, the higher its relevance score will be.

Retargeting is the process of showing ads for a company to people who have been to that company’s site, page, or app before but didn’t do what the company wanted them to do.

Repost means to use someone else’s social media content by putting it up again. This includes things like reposting, regramming, and retweeting.

RSS is an acronym for “really simple syndication” or “rich site summary” in social media. A feed is a list of all the new posts on a source, usually a blog.

S

Social media slang is a kind of shorthand used on the internet. Acronyms are short phrases that people use to talk to each other on social media. LOL (Laugh Out Loud), TBT (Throwback Thursday), and TBH (To Be Honest) are some well-known examples (to be honest).

Shareable content is content that gets passed around the Internet when people like a topic, idea, or story and click to share it with their friends and followers.

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM. Paid ads are used to make websites more visible on search engines.

Selfie A “selfie” is a picture that someone takes of themselves. Selfies are often taken with a smartphone camera and then shared on social media.

Selfie marketing is a type of social media marketing where brands create a trend for people to share by taking selfies. This is often done as part of an awareness campaign. When it comes to advertising on social media, this is a trend that can easily go viral because people want to join in, share, and be seen.

Social media is an app or website that makes it easy to share ideas, thoughts, and information through online networks and communities.

Social media content is anything that a person or business posts or shares on social media platforms, such as text updates, articles shared, photos, videos, and more.

Social media platform is a type of technology that lets businesses and people talk to each other online. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Tiktok, and Twitter are all examples.

Social network is a website or other app that lets people talk to each other by sharing information, comments, messages, pictures, etc.

Social trends are topics or types of content that become very popular on social media sites, usually for a short amount of time.

SoLoMo is the combination of “social, local, and mobile” marketing efforts that are aimed at users who are on the go and in a certain area.

SRP “Social relationship platform” is what “SRP” stands for. A central platform that lets you post content to multiple social media networks and then track, measure, and analyze the results.

T

Targeting entails selecting a specific group of people to whom your advertisements will be displayed based on various demographic or behavioral data, such as age ranges or life events, or even lists you’ve created yourself.

Thread: is a series of messages constituting a conversation. For keeping track of conversations in social media and email, threads are indispensable.

U

UGC – user generated content is any form of content, such as social media posts, images, videos, and reviews, created by individual users (not brands) and published online or on a social network. The use of user-generated content is rapidly becoming a highly effective online marketing strategy.

Unfollow is a social media term that means to stop following a person, group, or organization by unsubscribing from their account.

URL Shortener – URL shortener refers to a tool that can reduce the length of a lengthy link.

UI : User interface The visual aspect of an instrument that is used to control it.

UV – Unique views. The number of unique visitors to a page. It could also apply to images and videos.

UX – User experience. This refers to the best practices for facilitating user interaction and action execution within a website or application.

V

Vanity Metrics – Metrics that appear impressive to others, but do not necessarily help you comprehend your own performance in a manner that informs future strategies.

Verified Followers – an endorsement showing that the person or organization behind the account is genuine.

Viral: In social media jargon, “viral” refers to the rapid distribution of content via social media to millions of people online. Viral Thread Tracking is the practice of investigating which pieces of content have spread virally.

Vlogging is an abbreviation for video blogging, a YouTube phenomenon.

W

Webinar is a combination of “web” and “seminar.” A webinar is a virtual event attended (often exclusively) by online participants.

X

X Development: X Development in 2010 as a research and development facility that creates technologies for various industries.

Y

YouTube is one of the world’s most popular video-sharing websites. It was introduced in February 2005 and purchased by Google in October 2006.

What are the key terms that every marketer should be familiar with in social media marketing?

When it comes to social media marketing, there are several key terms that every marketer should be familiar with. From engagement to reach, and from impressions to types of promotion for marketers, it’s important to understand how each term can impact the success of a social media strategy.

Z

Zoom – A cloud-based video conferencing platform that facilitates virtual meetings. In terms of social media, a Zoom meeting is a meeting that is hosted using Zoom.