A-Z of social media terms

Analytics enables you to measure your social media performance. You can keep up to date with things like comments, retweets, shares and reach. Analytics helps you better understand your customers.

Social media advocacy relies on third-party individual, known as brand advocates. A brand advocate is a loyal customer who promotes your business and brings awareness to your brand.

Content marketing is the process of producing and sharing content that is valuable to your audience, in order to attract new customers to your brand.

Direct messaging is a powerful way to reach people instantly. Instant connection is what we all crave on social media. More and more brands are using direct messaging to create an improved customer experience.

Many brands are turning to Emojis in their social media campaigns. These are small smileys and ideograms which are used to communicate. They’re a visual and eye-catching way to engage audiences.

If you’re a social media guru, you most likely have thousands of followers. They are the bread and butter of social media. Followers keep brands and individuals connected in a large network.

Geolocation and Geotagging can be used on videos, images or messages across many social media platforms. Geolocation identifies the location settings of your smartphone so you can tag yourself at that location.

One of the most popular dashboards that manage all your social media marketing accounts is HootSuite. You can schedule content and upload images.

Interactive content is any content that encourages active participation from the user. This includes infographics, contests, and quizzes. Interactive content is more engaging and can help businesses differentiate from the competition.

Broadcasting over the internet in real-time has become very popular across social media, particularly on Facebook. Live streaming is projected to more than double in growth by 2021.

Everyone knows the Moments section on Twitter. It’s a page showing the best of what’s happening in the world, from sports and news to entertainment.

Many marketers create ads that fit the style and function of the platform in which it appears. This is known as native advertising. It’s a way to make ads look more like regular pieces of online content.

It’s common knowledge you should shorten URLs when sharing links on social media. Ow.ly is an effective tool that can be used via the Hootsuite dashboard. It shortens URLs and provides analytics about clicks.

To cut through the noise and target specific customers, many marketers use promoted tweets. These tweets are paid for and have a promoted marker at the top. Like regular tweets, they appear throughout the newsfeed.

When you select retweet for a given tweet, you have the option to quote tweet. They’re a great way to personalise your retweet and show appreciation for your customers.

Reach refers to the number of people who have seen your content on social media. Total reach can be broken down as organic, viral and paid.

Sharing content on social platforms is a key focus for all marketers. ShareThis‘s free code can be added to your website to allow visitors to easily share content on social media. It offers a quick way to interact with your latest posts.

When a topic or hashtag is popular on social media, it becomes a trend. A trend is popular at a particular time. They are the bread and butter of social networks and are constantly changing.

User-generated content is any form of content that users upload on their social media platforms. Brands often encourage users to submit their own images for competitions, in which they repost on their main social pages. This increases engagement and creates online buzz.

Social media accounts which have been verified are normally held by large companies, brands and public figures. Verified badges appear next to the name on the profile, letting people know it is authentic.

Businesses can use Yammer for private communications within their organisations. It helps you connect and engage with other people across the company.

ZZZ… Don’t sleep on current affairs, trending topics and the latest news in digital marketing. It’s important you stay up to date on all the changes in social media.