Social Media Buzzwords to Know in 2024
Whether you’re completely new to social media or just need to refresh your memory to start using different platforms to boost your business, it can be easy to get lost in the everchanging language of social media. Are you accidentally engagement baiting? What on earth is a CTR? Is A/B testing something you should try? Social media buzzwords can be intimidating- we understand.
We’ve compiled a list of the social media terminology you need to know to set up your accounts for success:
1. Engagement Rate
Your virtual charisma is not determined by the number of friends you have but by how many of them show up for you. Engagement rate measures the interaction between your content and your followers. It's the sum of your likes, shares, comments, and clicks, vs how they hold up against your total reach. This provides an extremely valuable metric- check out our article about calculating your engagement rate and using it effectively.
2. Reach vs. Impressions
Reach is your global broadcast; it's the total number of individual accounts who have seen your content. Impressions, however, paint a different picture. They denote how many times your content has been displayed, including multiple views by the same user. While reach reveals the size of your potential audience, impressions show the volume and frequency of your content's visibility.
3. Hashtags
Once a mere pound sign, hashtags are now the arteries of social media, allowing content to flow and be found by those seeking it. These metadata tags turn contextual words or phrases into clickable links, categorizing content and making it discoverable under trending topics and discussions. For entrepreneurs, they're the touchstones that connect you to your community.
4. Algorithm
No, it's not a chapter in a calculus textbook, but it does involve complex reasoning. The social media algorithm is the invisible force responsible for the sorting and prioritizing of content on your feed. It considers factors like engagement, relevance, and recency to curate a personalized user experience, making it a critical factor in the visibility of your content.
5. User-Generated Content (UGC)
Imagine content as a potluck dinner, and UGC is when everyone brings a dish. This is content created by your audience, which you then harness for marketing purposes. Whether it's testimonials, reviews, or fan artwork, UGC is a powerful tool that not only boosts credibility but also strengthens the community around your brand.
6. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
In the click economy, the CTR is king. It's a percentage quantifying how often people click on a link associated with a piece of content, ad, email campaign, or website. This metric gauges the effectiveness and allure of your call-to-action and can help fine-tune strategies for better engagement.
7. Influencer
Think of influencers as the modern-day town criers, with their social media pages acting as bustling marketplaces. These individuals have established credibility in a specific industry, and a large and engaged following. Businesses often collaborate with influencers to reach broader audiences through product endorsements or sponsored content.
8. Engagement Bait
Engagement bait is the sly art of fishing for likes, shares, comments, and other clicks by employing tactics that may not necessarily add value. Social platforms frown upon this practice, and smart entrepreneurs know that genuine interactions stemming from quality content are the only bait worth using.
Engagement bait examples:
Asking for comments: Telling people to leave a heart emoji or saying a specific phrase without providing anything useful tells the algorithm that your content is spammy.
Tagging numerous people in your post who aren’t in it: Tagging strangers in posts so that it potentially pops up in more people’s feeds is annoying- and the algorithm knows that!
Voting with reactions: Posts that have people choose their reaction based on things other than the reactions are supposed to alert the algorithm to engagement baiting.
See Facebook’s information about engagement bait here.
9. Social Listening
With social media, sometimes the more important part is not what you're saying but what you're hearing. Social listening is the act of monitoring your brand's online conversations to understand what’s being said about you, your competitors, and your industry. It's a powerful tool for garnering feedback and finding potential opportunities.
10. A/B Testing
The scientific method applied to content creation, A/B testing involves comparing two variants of a webpage, ad, email, or other piece of content to see which one performs better. By rigorously testing different elements, from visuals to copy, entrepreneurs can make data-driven decisions to optimize their social media presence. So, go forth and experiment! There's always a way to improve your results.
Hopefully, this sheds a little light on the world of social media- it’s not that scary! And if it is- our agency is ready to help. If you never want to look up social media terminology again, reach out.
