The A to Z of Social Media

We've put together an A-Z of Social Media for SME's to help you get to grips with some of the jargon and some way's to use social media for the benefit of your business.

Automation - Automation tools can help and make life so much easier for both business owners and social media managers. The debate and issue around automating your social media content does not appear to be dying down.  Just be sure if you do automate you don't forget to engage, after all, it's that in essence is what being social is all about.

Blogging - Blog is actually an abbreviation of Weblog, who would have known that hey? Producing regular content for websites and platforms, often brief but regularly is an important part of social media, and a really quick and easy way to commit to creating original content frequently.

Content - Content is still king around here and producing interesting, fun and engaging content is at the core of any social media campaign.  We are now absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to how to produce Content, from written text to video and live stream.  How will VR and AR affect the future of content production?

Direct Message - Regardless of the platform the DM is loved and loathed, It could be from your friends or a genuine opportunity but we all hate that person who connects with us on LinkedIn and 5,4,3,2,1 here comes the sales DM.

Engagement - No other E will do, the principal metric that every campaign should benchmark. Regardless of the size of the audience, no matter how big or how small it all comes back to how many users engage.

Facebook - How can we ignore the largest platform, sometimes it feels like the grandfather of social media (remember my space and bebo) no matter, with savvy acquisitions it somehow still manages to keep up with the NKOTB (for reference a close second on f was FFS, as often when we read some posts that's how we feel)

Geofilter - Overlays based on location for Snapchat and what looks to be a core source of income for the platform.  We also looked at Google+ how did they get that so wrong?

#Hashtag - The definitive way to find relevant messages grouped under the #, also becoming a symbol synonymous with social media.

Influencer - A social media user who can reach and engage an audience, don't be fooled by big numbers.  An influencer should do just that, hold some influence over those who follow them.

Java - once a great script but now more of the drink of choice to keep us awake as we work into the small hours.

Klout - A metric used to score how good your reach and influence is, loved by some, loathed by others, it's important to remember it is only one metric. The most important metric is the one set against your company or client brief.

Like - Quick and easy way to show a bit of appreciation for a post, a basic way for users to engage.

Meme - funny Content (most of the time) that often spreads virally. Gene wilder as Willy Wonker is a popular one along with “brace yourself” from Game of Thrones.

Newsworthy - The basic principle that has been applied by editors and journalists for 100’s of years when looking at a story, is it topical? Is it balanced and objective? does it present both sides of the story?

 

Organic Reach - The total number of people who have viewed your post without having to pay to promote the post. This is also referred to as unpaid distribution.

Podcast - An audio based broadcast, similar to a blog or vlog with audio content, popular due to the ability to listen to content on the move.  A portmanteau of "iPod" and "broadcast"  Really simple way to push your content out onto many platforms with large audiences.  Soundcloud and Itunes to name a few.

Quora - A question and Answer site, many businesses use Quora as an opportunity to showcase their knowledge and build up a personal profile. Due to the share volume of Q&A based content, it will often feature highly in Google search, meaning if you are a frequent “expert” you can gain excellent visibility.

Response Rate - Specific to Facebook, this is the time it takes a page admin to respond to questions. Responding to messages quickly (within 15 minutes 90% of the time) will earn you a badge for your page further giving you credibility and ensuring those dealing with you a level of reliability.

Selfie - come on you know how to do it, suck in those lips. Mobiles were once for making calls, not now, marketers have long used the selfie as part of competitions to create user-generated content, users are required to post a pic at a location or with a product, a simple and cheap way to attract engagement used in the correct way.

Tags - Tagging content with a keyword to help users find information based on a keyword regardless of the format (text, video or picture).  Tagging can also be used on several platforms to bring other users into a conversation through an update, post or picture.   

User Generated Content - The holy grail in publishing but not in Social Media.  This is when all content is created by “users or “public” most will come in the form of comments, posts or updates, many facebook groups have members creating UGC for the benefit of the community.  Brands tend to want users to organically talk about their products, non-paid reviews and the like will also be considered as UGC, any “Fan Sector” sector (comics, games, cars etc) are usually successful with this as so much opinion is generated via users passions.

Viral - When a post goes viral it is considered successful as users will continue to share the content and the audience will grow.  Often viral posts have serious momentum behind them and reach huge volumes of eyeballs in relatively short periods of time.

Wordpress - One of the easiest open source web site platforms to use, if you are building a website (they also have options for blogging that are simple to setup and host) be careful, make sure you own the website, yes, just because your names on it, that easy to use online website builder you just created you shiny new site in may actually own it.  Being open source Wordpress can be scaled up as and when, and once your own skills have been surpassed you have so much opportunity to find someone to help take it further for all budgets.

Generation X - Yea the forgotten ones! We are not baby boomers and some of us were born on the cusp of Millennials, we have seen both the old school and new school works.  Don’t hate us because we are awesome.

Youtube - With video content continually on the rise we had to include YouTube, with the introduction of live stream will this finally be the platform that Google can take on the other networks.  

Zero Engagement - These are users who just post and don’t engage with others, avoid! Social Media is about being social, you will find those that are opinionated, those that you agree with and those you don’t. When working for a brand or client you just need to rise above and think about what that brand represents, be professional and always remain polite and calm even when dealing with negative feedback and trolls.

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