This article is about social media buzzwords and what they mean. It is written for people who are learning and involved in social media marketing.
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Organic
Organic content is content that is shared on social media without any money being paid to promote it.
Boosted/Promoted/Paid
You're paying for a piece of content to get more people to see it.
Meme
Memes are funny pictures that are shared online. People often write funny things about them. You can learn more about memes on a website called KnowYourMeme.com.
A/B testing
A/B testing is when you compare two social media posts to see which one is better. The most common way to do this is to change just one thing (like the headline or image) and see which one performs better. You can do this with organic and paid posts.
Algorithm
In social media, some people use the word "algorithm" to mean the set of rules a social network uses to choose which posts to show you. For example, if Facebook decides that it wants to show posts with a lot of comments, they adjust the rules of its algorithm accordingly.
Analytics
Analytics is the way to look at data to see patterns. In social media, analytics is when you look at metrics to see how you are doing and then use that information to make your social media strategy better.
Application Programming Interface (API)
It's a set of tools that make it easy for programmers to create software that interacts with social media networks. Lots of different social media tools (like those for managing Facebook pages) rely on APIs to work.
Evergreen content
In content marketing, evergreen content is content that is always interesting and valuable, no matter when it is posted. This type of content is great for recycling and sharing on social media because it doesn't lose its relevance over time. For example, an article about the challenges of being a social media marketer is more likely to be evergreen than one about a new Tik Tok feature.
Cross-channel
In social media marketing, each social network is also a marketing channel. For example, a cross-channel social strategy is a strategy that aligns your objectives across all the social networks you use.
Listicle
Listicles are articles that are made up of lists. They are often popular on social media because they are easy to digest.
Newsjacking
Newsjacking is when you post about current events on social media. You can use this to seem timely and relevant, and also to get more exposure for your content. For example, when there was a power outage during the Super Bowl in 2013, Oreo got a lot of engagement with this tweet.
Ephemeral content
Disappearing content is used in social media marketing to be spontaneous and timely while motivating users to engage through FOMO.
Dark post
A dark post is a social media post that doesn't show up on the advertiser's timeline and is only seen by people the advertiser is targeting.
Dark social
Dark social is when people share links privately on social media, instead of publicly. This makes it hard to track the traffic from those links. A study found that 84% of content sharing happens on dark social.
Relevance score
A relevance score is a number from 1 to 10 that tells you how well your target audience is responding to your ad. The score is based on how positively or negatively people respond to the ad and how well the ad is doing overall. The higher your relevance score, the more relevant your ad is to your target audience and the more likely it will be shown to them.
Average response time
It is the average time it takes a brand to reply to questions or complaints on social media.
Boosted post
A boosted post is a post that you put money behind to make it more likely to be seen by more people. It's like paying to make your post more popular. You can target a specific audience and set an exact boost duration and budget.
Vanity metric
A Vanity metric on social media is a statistic that is not useful for gaining insights. Impressions are a good example of a vanity metric because they are often larger than reach, but don't tell you how popular or engaging a post was.
Clickbait
Clickbait is content that tries to convince you to click on it, usually by being exaggerated or withholding information. Social networks consider clickbait spammy and lower its reach accordingly.
Brand advocate
Brand advocates are customers who support your company on social media by leaving positive reviews and messages. They may also encourage others to try your products or services through word-of-mouth marketing.
Clickthrough rate (CTR)
The clickthrough rate is the number of people who click on your post as a percentage of the number of people who see your post.
Conversion rate (CVR)
The conversion rate is the percentage of people who see your post or ad and then do something that you want them to do, like buying something or signing up for a newsletter. If your goal is to increase conversions, then the conversion rate (CVR) is an important metric for figuring out how effective your post or ad is.
Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per click is a measure of how much you're paying for each click on your ad. If your goal is to drive traffic to a landing page or piece of content, a low CPC means you're getting more traffic at a lower price. CPC can vary based on many factors, including who you're targeting, where you're targeting, and how relevant your ad is to your target audience.
Cost per mille (CPM)
"Cost per mille" is another way to measure how much you're spending to get your ad seen by 1,000 people (‘mille’ means 1,000 in Latin). It's important to watch this metric if your goal is to get your ad in front of as many people as possible and spread brand awareness.
Engagement rate
Engagement Rate is a way to measure how interesting or motivating your posts are on social media. It's calculated by dividing how many people interacted with your post by how many people saw your post, then multiplying by 100%. It's difficult to compare engagement rates between different social media platforms because what counts as an "engagement" and what counts as "seeing your post" is different on each platform. "Seeing your post" could refer to reach or impressions, while "engagements" may include likes, comments, shares, reactions, and more.
Social listening
Social listening is a way that social media managers track conversations around key topics, terms, brands, and more. They do this by using a specialized software tool that gathers mentions, comments, hashtags, and other relevant posts from across social media. Brands often use this information to see what trends people are talking about and what they are saying about the brand and its competitors.
User-generated content (UGC)
UGC means fan-created content that promotes a brand. Brands use UGC to get users engaged with social media campaigns and to build trust and loyalty with followers. For example, Toyota asked people to submit videos of themselves playing street music as part of a campaign.
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