A Social Media Lexicon for Dummies

Warning: This piece may be a bit more 101 for some than many posts on our blog, or at least seem so.

The terms below are often thrown about casually in articles and conversations, by experts and beginners alike, but not always is their true meaning understood. It has come to the point where either one thinks one understands, and proceeds implementing them without caution, or one is far too embarrassed to ask.

Overall, this is a collection of terms and expressions that I have been recently inquired about by clients, or which provoked a “…” reaction when used in conference calls.

Influencers

When I think influence I think “under the influence…” therefore influencers must be illegal in certain contexts. Right? OK maybe that’s just me. Blogs posts are always advising brand managers to reach out to influencers, “engage” with them on public platforms such as Twitter, YouTube or Tumblr.

The only similarity between “those” influencers and the ones we’re talking about is that they all make you feel good in one way or another.

Influencers in social media are people who have a relatively high reputation on a platform, and therefore not only have lots of people listening to them, but can actually get quite a few people to take some sort of action on their behalf, such as ReTweet, like, share, or comment on a piece of content.

Relevance

Have you ever been told to be relevant? Well, whether it was in regards to you as a person or your social media management, the advice is pertinent. What it means is to think of what your audience wants to talk or learn about and serve them exactly that. A brand that is relevant doesn’t talk about itself nonstop or vomit deals in a news feed. It also doesn’t merely ask questions – it gives answers, relevant answers.

So if you own a baby clothing shop, think of what mommies want to know more about that you, the expert, can offer. Tell them about your products but only as it pertains to a broader, more relevant, issue.

Drive Action

Do your words actually lead your audience to DO something?

I.e. do they reply, do they share,comment or do anything with your content other than passively scroll and drool? Simple as that.

Influencers, as we have covered, drive action.

Go Viral

Most of us were probably instructed to stay AWAY from viral things in general as kids. Viral = contagious = boogers.

In social media, the term “viral” is thrown around as if it was something you could check off a checklist – “let’s make it go viral, OK?” Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work that way, not directly anyway.

Viral marketing focuses on producing content that people will most likely want to share with one another organically, mostly by being interesting and relevant. Bottom line, there is no button that makes something “go viral,” except of course the Amy Vernon button.

Customer Loyalty

How does your social media presence help make customers loyal? Actually, that correlation sounds absurd when I say it out-loud.

But think of it this way: you create a Facebook page for your product and use it to share information about the industry, your products and your team. You reply people who write things on your Wall (i.e. your potential and current customers) and help them find what they’re looking for. You run fun initiatives from time to time and collect fans’ photos of stuff and encourage them to contribute to your page… and your updates show up on their news stream every single day.

The result: your Facebook fan now has a relationship with your brand that goes beyond their original appreciation for a specific product. This should translate at the cashier online, offline, or by WOM.

WOM

Word Of Mouth. What people tell each other, regardless of the medium. For your brand, this means going beyond shoving ideas down your audience’s throat; in fact it means helping them clear their throat so they can talk about you positively.

And you know where people like to share stuff and tell each other things? See Title.

Audit

An evaluation of your (brand’s) social media presence. A thorough audit will analyze how well you are doing in relation to your competitors, what needs to be improved, what is working, and identify missed opportunities you can still capitalize on.

Location-Based Platforms/Applications

Refer to this other post for tons of info.

Engagement

In a normal offline context (or “IRL” for uber-geeks), an engagement is either a promise to marry or an arrangement to meet someone at a particular time. In social media, it is often referred to as the ultimate currency or golden coin – how many times have you heard that such and such will improve engagement, or that you need to increase engagement on your social profiles and websites rather than merely the number of fans, followers and visitors?

Engagement is how much your audience actually interact with your content. Are your posts on Facebook no more than a news feed pulled from some blog on your site or does it entice your readers to comment, Like, share, upload their own content, imitate… you get the point. A print newspaper is for reading. A social media post is for engaging with.

Social Shopping

Kind of like going with your friends to the mall… but online, at different times and from different locations. Essentially, it’s shopping online with the convenience of having your friends’ input and the maladies of peer pressure all at once from your personal computer! See this article for an in-depth explanation.

Organic

Organic food at the market generally costs more and is better for you. The same is true with organic anything in social media, but you pay with time and effort (which often translates to paying a social media strategist so we’re back to money).

Basically, you can pay someone to write a blog post about you, Tweet or endorse your product on Facebook. You can pay Google to have your ad show up in search results. This may help spread awareness about your brand, influence sentiment, or get people talking about it… but once the campaign is over, so is the conversation.

Organic buzz, organic search… and anything “organic” in social media pertains to actions or conversations that occur naturally among people online, thus driving natural traffic to your site or naturally increasing your numbers on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Often, paid campaigns focus on catalyzing organic results.

This term is often used in relation to blog posts. Here is an example of how it may apply to Twitter: some people rightfully have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter… others dubiously do. Haven’t you ever seen an account that doesn’t share anything of value but has a massive following to boast? Third-party software can be used to boost your followers – often bringing in bots, people who will follow just about anybody, and essentially tons of Tweeters who couldn’t care less about what you have to say.The exact opposite of this entails amassing followers organically – through interesting tweets and recommendations.

The result: 100,000 followers who never read your Tweets vs. 20 (organic) followers who are interested in your brand.

I hope our readers will find these useful. – are there any others that you would like explained? Can you think of others that are often misused? Leave a note below and I will promptly respond.

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