The phenomenon of social media has taken the world by storm. Being a bit old-school myself, I understand how daunting it is to start marketing your business – especially when you first need to decipher the complexities of modern social media jargon.
Your easy-peasy guide to social media jargon starts here
Here is a comprehensive A-Z guide of the most commonly used terms. Once you understand them, you might identify a few features (you didn’t even know existed) which could help your business extend its reach. Ready to dig in? Let’s get to it!
#1 Priority marketing jargon to know
For the sake of simplicity and ease of use, we begin our journey at the very top of the alphabet. Scroll to read more!
- Algorithm: Algorithm is basically a fancy word for a set of formulas. These formulas allow for platforms like Google and Facebook to perform specific functions on a computer. Knowing and understanding these algorithms is crucial in digital marketing, as it allows companies to compile and develop strategies in promoting their content in a way in which will get the best results on different platforms.
- Call-to-action: This is a vital ingredient for companies (especially a marketing company, which sells services, rather than tangible items). Basically, a call to action is content which contains an ‘instruction’ to perform some sort of action, for example, ‘Click here to read more’, or ‘Buy now’. This will then, depending if the user takes action or not, influence conversion rate (see below).
- Clicks: This is the total number of times an advertisement or post was clicked on. Clicks accumulate on a variety of items, for example, on Facebook, a click can either be counted on the “Call to Action” button, share button, or the like and comment buttons. A unique click is defined as a click from one single user.
- CTR (Click through Rate – %): This metric is shown as a percentage. It is the number of unique clicks an advertisement or campaign received, divided by the number of times it was shown (impressions – see below). Basically, it tells you what percentage of people who saw your ad, decided to click on it.
- Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of people who have completed an intended action, for example, the number of people who subscribed to a newsletter or purchased an item on your website. The goal of advertising is to convert readers into buyers, your conversion rate tells you how well you did that.
- CPC (Cost per Click – Link): The amount of money that was charged per click. It goes without saying, then, that the more clicks an ad receives, the lower the charge.
#2 Priority marketing jargon to know
We’re about halfway through our findings and hopefully, by now, you’re getting a clearer idea of the types and uses of social media jargon. Onward bound!
- Hashtag: It may seem insignificant, but this is a vital addition to the social media realm, and definitely not insignificant. A hashtag is essentially a catchphrase, or even a single word, which has been added to a social media message, and which has a ‘#’ before it. The hashtag is vital because it allows for easy categorisation and searchability of information. For example, Brand Candy would use #marketingdurban (amongst others) for potential clients to search for our company online.
- Impressions: This is the total number of times that an advertisement or post was seen. So, each time an advertisement or post is shown on a computer or other device, it is known as an impression.
#3 Priority marketing jargon to know
We’re almost at the end of our journey. Hold tight for the tail-end.
- Landing Page Views: This is the number of times someone landed on, and interacted with, a specific page on a website (via a link in a social media advert). This ‘landing’ would have occurred when an individual clicked the call-to-action button in your social media advert.
- Post Engagement: The total number of clicks, likes, shares and comments which an individual post obtains. In other words, how many times people engaged with your advert.
- Reach: The number of unique individuals who saw an advertisement or post.
Ka-blam! Or in the words of Looney Tunes, ‘that’s all folks’!
Do you have a better understanding of some of the most used social media jargon and terms? If you need some more help, join our Introduction to social media marketing course or Book a private session with one of our experts, let’s get your brand buzzing (see what we did there? -that’s a call-to-action!).
