By Debbie Gregory.

Are you still hung up on the difference between a mention and a reply on Twitter? Do you just want to brush up on your social knowledge? Continuing our ultimate glossary of social media marketing terms with more information to keep you in the know.

Boost, boosted post

A boosted post is a form of social media advertising in which a brand pays to show a social post to people who do not already follow the brand’s social accounts.

Brand advocate

A brand advocate is a customer who loves your brand so much that they promote your products or services without being asked. However, brand advocates can become even more valuable if you connect with them directly to engage and empower them.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is a social media metric that captures how likely people are to be aware of your brand. You can measure brand awareness for any given period by tracking the amount of attention your brand gets online in the form of mentions and engagement. The more people are talking about you online, the greater your brand awareness.

Caption

A caption is a description that accompanies a photo on social media. Captions can include text, hashtags, @ mentions, and emojis. Captions are an important part of telling your photo’s story on social media and a key driver of engagement.

Chat

A chat is an online conversation with one or more people. Whether one-on-one or in a group, chats are usually private and text-based, although they may incorporate GIFS, photos, and even audio recordings. Common chat platforms include WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. “Chat” can also be used to mean a moderated public conversation on social media, organized around a hashtag. Twitter chats, like the monthly #HootChat are a prime example.

Chatbot

A chatbot is a type of bot that uses artificial intelligence to answer questions and perform simple tasks in messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger. A chatbot can be used for customer service, data and lead collection, shopping recommendations, and more.

Check-in

A check-in is a way of location tagging a social media post to indicate where the user is, or where the content in the post was created.   It is a way of showing followers that you have physically visited a geographical location or event. It can be particularly useful to check in at large, high-profile events, since it can help people connect in the real world while also providing credibility and demonstrating that you are an insider in your industry.

Clickbait

Clickbait is web content with a misleading or sensationalist headline designed to get readers to click through to the full story, which is generally a disappointment. Clickbait’s goal is usually to generate pageviews and advertising revenue. All social networks have taken a stance against clickbait, and algorithms are designed not to surface clickbait posts. In other words, it’s a practice to avoid.

Click-through rate (CTR)

Click-through rate, abbreviated CTR, is a measure of how many people who view a social post, ad, or other piece of content click through to read more, buy, or take some other action.  It is a useful metric because it measures how effectively your social content drives people to your owned web properties. The formula to calculate CTR is number of clicks divided by total impressions. CTR is usually expressed as a percentage.

Comment

A comment is a form of engagement in which a user replies to your social media post. Comments can offer praise, ask a question, express disagreement, and otherwise contribute to the online conversation about your social content. Comments can include text, hashtags, @ mentions, and emojis. Many comments show that your post is engaging and may boost its position in the newsfeed based on a social network’s algorithm.

Community Manager

A community manager is a social media professional who nurtures relationships among a group of social media users so that the community acts on behalf of the common interest. Community managers help develop professional and brand-focused social relationships by monitoring and engaging with fans and followers.

Compliance

Compliance is the practice of understanding and following the rules, regulations, and law. Social media compliance is particularly relevant to organizations in regulated industries like healthcare and finance. These businesses face strict rules governing how they can use social media and how their social content must be archived.

Connection

A connection is someone you or your brand is connected to on social media. LinkedIn specifically uses the term “connections” to refer to professional social relationships—LinkedIn connections are the equivalent of Facebook friends.

Content Curation

Content curation involves collecting relevant content from credible sources and then sharing it with your social followers by linking to the original post. It is a way to create value for your audience beyond sharing your own original content. Sharing resources can also be a good way to build relationships with thought leaders in your field.

Content marketing

Content marketing is the practice of attracting and retaining customers through the creation and distribution of original, valuable content such as videos, whitepapers, guides, and infographics. Consistently providing valuable content gives followers a reason to stay tuned to your social channels while building rapport and establishing your industry expertise.

Conversion

A conversion occurs when a social media user or visitor to your website takes a specific, desired action. Making a purchase is often the desired conversion, but it is not the only one. Other conversion examples include lead-generation actions like opting into a newsletter, registering for a webinar, or downloading a whitepaper.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors. It’s a social media metric that allows you to measure how well your social media efforts are working to achieve specific business goals.

Cost per click (CPC)

Cost per click (CPC) is a metric for how much each click costs in a pay-per-click advertising campaign. Cost-per-click and pay-per-click are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are actually two sides of the same coin. Pay-per-click is the type of ad model, and cost-per-click is the fee per click.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that provides licenses and other legal tools to allow photographers and other content creators to share their work. There are more than 1.6 billion works in the Commons, which can be shared in various ways. The six levels of Creative Commons licenses restrict how an image or other content can be used, and whether attribution is required.

Creep

To “creep” is essentially to stalk a person or a brand on social media, especially without engaging with any of their posts. Despite the negative word, it is not always a negative thing. Creeping can also be a form of online research, for instance, when screening potential new employees.

VAMBOA hopes that our audience is enjoying this series. Stay tuned for part 3.   You might want to print this out as a glossary.

By Debbie Gregory.

Social media has become more important than ever before, especially for your business as well as personally.  During this CoronaVirus Pandemic, it is a way to stay connected and not feel so isolated.   VAMBOA thinks it will be valuable to our audience to do this series of articles on social media terms to provide a better understanding for everyone.  We hope that you enjoy this series.

For many people, posting a tweet, hash tagging an Instagram caption, or sending out an invite for a Facebook event has become a very common and often a daily, practice.  People during this pandemic are spending more time on social media and online.  There are brand new social networks, software packages, and confusing words cropping up every day. Even the most seasoned social media users may find that the new terms and acronyms leave them scratching their heads.

In this 7-part series we have compiled a comprehensive list of the most commonly used terms along with their meanings.

AB Test

An A/B test is a method of comparing two variations of an ad, piece of content, or other material so you can see which version performs better. This is also known as split testing.  A/B testing involves changing one small element at a time (such as a headline or graphic) to refine your results. During A/B testing, only a portion of your audience sees each test. This allows you to create the most effective content before you release it to your entire following.

AMA (Ask Me Anything)

An AMA, short for “ask me anything,” is a type of interactive post in which someone answers questions, usually in real time. The AMA concept began on Reddit, but AMAs are now popping up in other social settings, like webinars, Facebook Live, or Instagram Stories. AMAs were originally text-based, but it can also be effective to answer questions using live social video or interactive stickers.

Algorithm

An algorithm is basically a set of steps a computer uses to accomplish a task. In the context of social media, an algorithm is how a social platform determines which content to display at any given time to a specific user. Social networks are notoriously secretive about how their algorithms work, but in general, they use clues based on a user’s social relationships and interactions to determine which content that user will find most appealing.

Analytics

Analytics is an umbrella term used to describe both social analysis tools and the information those tools provide. Most social networks include their own analytics tools to help businesses analyze how well their posts are doing for metrics such as reach, engagement, and follower growth.

Application Programming Interface (API)

An application programming interface (API) is a communication system that allows two applications or platforms to “talk” to each other. Social network APIs allow these platforms to integrate with other software providers and apps. For example, Hootsuite uses Twitter’s API to publish tweets, and Instagram’s API to schedule posts.

When Instagram wanted to shut down the shady “growth-hacking” apps people were using to grow their audience artificially, they shut down their old API and launched a new one with much tougher privacy controls.

Archiving

In the context of social media, archiving means creating an archive of your organization’s social media posts, messages, and associated metadata. Basically, it means keeping a record of absolutely everything. This is often required for regulatory compliance in industries like health care and finance.

An organization’s social media archive includes what was said, when, and in what context. It also shows how quickly customer messages are addressed. This data can be referenced during legal discovery, if necessary, or requested by regulatory bodies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is the ability for computers, programs, or machines to learn and adapt in ways that resemble human thinking. For example, chatbots use artificial intelligence to communicate and answer questions, while home assistants like Alexa use AI to learn to better respond to your requests over time. The more you interact with an AI program, the more “intelligent” it becomes, since it has more data to work with.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented reality (AR) uses computer-generated effects to augment the reality we perceive with our own eyes and ears. Face filters on social apps like Snapchat and Instagram Stories are the most common examples. Your real face is augmented with graphics (and sometimes sounds) created by the social platform.

When used creatively, augmented reality provides new ways for potential customers to interact with your brand, such as seeing what your products would look like in their home or which glasses look the best on their face.

Avatar

An avatar is a visual representation of a person for use in digital contexts.  It is usually a computer-generated image, such as a bitmoji.  On social media, the term “avatar” also refers to your profile picture, the image that represents you on the platform. Most individual users choose a photo as their social media avatar, sometimes supplemented by a digital frame or filter. For brands, the company logo is usually the best avatar choice.

Bio

Your bio, short for biography, is the section of any digital profile that tells new or prospective followers who you are. All social platforms offer space to write a bio. It’s the   first thing users see when they discover your profile, and a good one can greatly improve how often you show up in keyword searches.

Bitmoji

A bitmoji is a customized avatar that can be added to Gmail, Messenger, Slack, and social media networks. The bitmoji app allows you to create this cartoon representation of yourself, then create different versions of the avatar in different situations. In addition to using your bitmoji as a profile picture, you can use it to create custom messages to share in messaging and social apps. Bitmoji is owned by Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, and is well integrated with the Snapchat app.

Block

When you block someone on social media, you prevent them from seeing your posts on that social network. Blocked users will also be unable to follow you, message you, or tag you in photos. Blocked Twitter users will not be able to add you to lists. Blocked users can still @ mention you in a post, but this will not count toward your engagement metrics. Keep in mind that it’s pretty easy even for blocked users to see content you’ve posted publicly. Use the privacy setting on each social network for better control over who sees each of your posts.

Blog

Originally a contraction of the phrase “web log,” a blog is a type of digital publication in which one or more authors regularly post content, generally on a specific topic. Many brands use a blog to share engaging content with their audience and establish their industry expertise. The Hootsuite blog, for example, shares up-to-date content about social media marketing and how to use social tools. “Blog” can also be a verb: When you write for a blog, you are blogging.

Blogger

Blogger a free blogging platform owned by Google. Blogs using this platform are usually hosted on a blogspot.com subdomain, but the platform can also be used with a purchased domain name. Blogger supports single or multi-user blogs. The word “blogger” can also simply mean a person who writes and publishes a blog.  Many high-profile bloggers are categorized as influencers because their content reaches many people.