Social Media Glossary

Percentage of followers who interact with a post (likes + comments + shares + saves divided by reach or followers).

Number of unique users who saw your post at least once.

Total number of times your post was shown, including repeat views.

Percentage of people who took the desired action after seeing your content.

Click-through rate is the percentage of people who clicked a link or ad out of everyone who saw it.

Cost per mille is what you pay for one thousand ad impressions.

Cost per click is the average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad.

Return on ad spend is the revenue you earn for every dollar spent on advertising.

Follower growth rate is the percentage by which your audience grew over a set period.

Share of voice is the percentage of all conversation in your market that mentions your brand.

Video view rate is the percentage of viewers who watched your video past a defined threshold.

Save rate is the percentage of viewers who bookmarked your post to return to it later.

The ranking system each platform uses to decide whose content appears in whose feed.

A keyword prefixed with # that groups posts on the same topic and makes them discoverable.

The consistent personality, tone, and vocabulary that distinguish your brand's communication.

A core topic or theme your brand consistently posts about.

The specific group of people you want your content to reach and resonate with.

Content created by your customers, fans, or community — not by your brand directly.

The hours when your specific audience is most active and the algorithm rewards early engagement.

An explicit instruction to the viewer for what to do next.

Social media marketing is the practice of promoting a brand, product, or service through content and paid ads on social platforms to reach and engage an audience.

Social media management is the ongoing process of planning, creating, scheduling, publishing, and analyzing content across social platforms, plus engaging with the audience.

A social media strategy is a documented plan that defines goals, target audience, platforms, content pillars, and metrics for a brand's social media presence.

Content repurposing is the practice of reshaping one piece of content into multiple formats or platform-specific versions to extend its reach and value.

Social listening is the process of monitoring social platforms for mentions of a brand, competitors, or topics to gather insights and respond.

Influencer marketing is a strategy where brands partner with creators who have trusted audiences to promote products through authentic content.

Social commerce is selling products directly within social media platforms, letting users discover and buy without leaving the app.

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant and useful long after publishing, instead of being tied to a trend or moment.

Brand awareness is how readily your target audience recognizes and recalls your brand when they think about a product category.

Social proof is the psychological effect where people copy the actions of others to guide their own behavior, especially under uncertainty.

Growth hacking is a rapid, data-driven approach to growing a user base by running many cheap experiments and scaling whatever works.

Omnichannel marketing delivers one seamless, consistent brand experience across every channel a customer uses, online and offline.

Content curation is the practice of finding, filtering, and sharing the most relevant third-party and owned content for your audience.

Community management is the ongoing work of building, engaging, and moderating a brand's audience across its social channels.

A social media funnel maps the stages a follower moves through, from first discovering your brand to becoming a paying, loyal customer.

Viral marketing is a strategy designed to make content spread rapidly through organic sharing, so each viewer recruits more viewers.

A multi-slide post (typically 2-10 images or videos) users swipe through.

Short-form vertical videos on Instagram (9:16, up to 90 seconds).

Vertical 9:16 posts that disappear after 24 hours (Instagram, Facebook, Threads).

Short-form video is vertical video content typically under 60 seconds, built to grab attention fast and loop or autoplay in a feed.

Long-form video is video content longer than a few minutes, built for depth, watch time, and stronger trust rather than quick reach.

An infographic is a visual that combines data, icons, and short text to explain a topic or statistic at a glance.

Live streaming is broadcasting real-time video to an audience that can watch, comment, and interact as it happens.

A thread is a connected series of posts that tell one story or argument in sequence, mostly on X or Threads.

Link in bio is the single clickable URL in a social profile, often a landing page that routes followers to multiple destinations.

Meme marketing is using popular meme formats and humor to spread a brand message in a relatable, highly shareable way.

A pinned post is a post fixed to the top of a profile or feed so it stays visible above newer content.

Paid social is any social media content you pay a platform to distribute to a targeted audience, as opposed to unpaid organic reach.

Retargeting is advertising that shows ads to people who already interacted with your brand, such as site visitors or video viewers, to bring them back.

A lookalike audience is a new ad audience the platform builds by finding people who resemble an existing source list, such as your customers or followers.

A boosted post is an existing organic post you pay to show to more people, the simplest entry point into paid social.

A social media scheduler is a tool that lets you plan and queue posts in advance so they publish automatically at set times across platforms.

A social media dashboard is a single interface that unifies posting, analytics, and engagement across all your social accounts.

An AI content generator is a tool that uses generative AI to draft social media captions, images, or videos from a short prompt or brief.

Social media automation is the use of software to handle repetitive tasks like posting, replying, and reporting without manual effort each time.