The Social Media Dictionary: Terms & Definitions to Know Before Managing a Social Media Account

One of the most difficult parts about starting out in social media marketing is keeping all the terms straight! I don't know who invented social media marketing terms and the 100 million acronyms, but we need to have a serious chat..in the meantime, we created a cheat sheet for social media terms for you to know before you jump into managing a social media account.

• Platform = The different social media sites are sometimes referred to as a platform. For example, "Instagram is a great platform for creating a community!"

• Social Media Return On Investment (ROI): The money and effort put into a campaign or account subtracted from the number of sales, leads, or the desired results you get back.

• Content: The material you post.

• Social Media Content Strategy: a plan outlining how your social media will meet your goals. Typically, it includes an audit, audience analysis, competitor analysis, industry research, content pillars, and an overall plan.

• Social media audit: the process of reviewing the health of your social media account, in terms of overall performance, analytics, and goals progress.

• Content Pillars: A theme, group, or category that you use to create content for your socials.

• Algorithm = Probably the most difficult definition to explain! An algorithm is the way the platform organizes, categorizes, and presents content to the user. This is typically sorted by relevancy or recency.

• Analytics = How you can measure the performance of your social media. These are statistics that each platform generates to help you track different results. Typically, it includes impressions, reach, followers, engagement, and many more!

• B2B = Business to Business. This is any company that sells its product or service to another company. So, if a business was selling accounting software for businesses to use, it would be B2B.

• B2C = Business to Consumer. This is a business that sells consumer products to the consumer! This could be your favorite makeup product, a grocery store item, or even surfing lessons!

• Influencer = A person with a following who can affect their audience's purchasing choices by endorsing products/services. There are different levels or stages of influencers, based on their amount of following:

  Mega = 1 Million+

  Macro = 500k-1 Million

  Mid = 50k-500k

  Micro = 10k-50k

  Nano = 1k - 10k

• DM / PM = Both terms mean similar things! Essentially, it just means the message portion of the platform, to have a conversation 1:1

  DM = Direct Message

  PM = Personal Message

• Click Through Rate (CTR) = the number of clicks that your social media ad receives divided by the impressions it received. In other words, how many people saw it overall, and of those, how many clicked on it when they saw it?

• Conversion Rate = A conversion rate is usually related to sales, leads, or sign-ups. You take the number of times your end goal was met (sales, sign-ups, link clicks, etc.) and divide it by the number of impressions.

• Buyer Persona = An in-depth description of someone who encompasses your target customer.

• Cost per Click = A metric that entails when the advertiser to pay every time the ad is clicked.

• Bio = Your social media bio is a summary or introduction of your company and its mission. This is showcased on your profile and is often the first snapshot viewers see on your page.

• Social Listening = Listening and monitoring conversations surrounding your brand, including mentions, comments, and other user-generated content.

• User-Generated Content = Any content about a brand created by the consumers of the brand, rather than by the brand itself.

• Trends = A topic, sound, post, or idea that quickly gains popularity.

• Viral = Similar to and often relating to trends, 'going viral' is when content is widely shared and becomes known and popular.

• Impressions = The number of times your content is displayed on a viewer’s screen.

• Reach = The number of people that see your content.

• Engagement = The metric of people interacting with your content, through comments, likes, reactions, and shares.

• Batching = A productivity technique that social media marketers and managers use to create content. It consists of breaking down each task and completing it all together, for example, you can create all your captions at once or all your graphics.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) = Metrics tracked and measured to determine the progress of your goals in your social media strategy.

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