Posted by It’s 2022 and people still get confused when presented with some basic social media marketing vocabulary.
The world has now transitioned into a social network where the majority of businesses are recognized and judged based on their social media presence. This is why it is important to not only recognize but also understand several social media marketing vocabularies for a better insight into what they actually provide.
This is why almost 90% of businesses are now active on social media — claiming it to be an essential strategy for marketing purposes. It won’t be absurd if one claims that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are primarily the major source of social media marketing.
So regardless of whether the business owner is a veteran or a beginner, knowing and having an understanding of social media marketing vocabulary is of great importance. Otherwise, their social media marketing activity would be similar to a car without no brakes — not knowing when to stop which likewise would make their target market confused and annoyed. Some social media marketing tools may also make you more effective but you need to understand well what social media is all about.
So to cut it all short, here are the top 10 social media marketing vocabulary that is a must-know in 2022!
1. A/B Testing
Also known as split testing, A/B Testing is a social media test that helps identify the best-suited marketing strategy for your business. It works by comparing two variants on your social media that in return tells which of the two was able to drive more conversions. These two variants can be photo and video or video or headline. This test can be done with both; organic and paid posts.
2. Clickbait
With the increased use of social media, we have seen increased use of clickbait too. Ever opened a link with a weird tagline? That’s clickbait!
If you are familiar with what bait is, you are almost familiar with clickbait. Just how as bait entices a fish, clickbait is used to entice customers. This is done by producing manipulative content that users are most likely to click on. For instance, “You can now earn $10 by following these 3 steps” — marketeers know people would intentionally click on the link and hence, this makes a great marketing strategy.
3. Dark Post
Ever wondered how certain posts make it to your feed? Well, those are dark posts.
You might also know them by their other name, “unpublished page posts” as they are known on Facebook, “promoted-only tweets” on Twitter, or “direct sponsored content” on LinkedIn. However, on Instagram, any ads you see are by default dark posts.
These posts, rather than appearing on the advertiser’s timeline, appear on the timeline of the targeted audiences. They are nothing like organic or boosted posts.
4. Listicle
As the name suggests, a listicle is basically a list-based article advertisement. Reasons for popularity? The ease they provide. Listicles are articles that are written in bullet points as the aim to be more user-friendly by providing a quick and easy format.
Their popularity basically derives from the elimination of long paragraphs with a number of haphazard sentences that do not look attractive to the reader’s eye. Luckily, there also easy to create thanks to helpful AI writers.
So since they are broken down into pointers, they are easier to grasp. Examples include articles starting from “50 Top Schools/30 Tips to Lose Weight.”
5. Newsjacking
Something that never gets old — Newsjacking. This is as simple as it sounds — to use current events from around the globe with your content on social media. The purpose of newsjacking is to let the audience know that the business is timely and up-to-date. Side by side, the business can use key hashtags and start different conversations relating to the latest news to increase exposure.
For instance, how several pharmaceutical companies took advantage of COVID-19 to increase their exposure.
6. Meme
One of the most popular and successful marketing strategies, memes, could be anything from a text to a video or image containing humor. They need to have an element of fun, suspense, thrill, or humor in order to go viral. Once they are out and viral, you would see users creating their own memes out of yours. You can also leverage the power of AI to upscale your images if you only have one with below-average quality.
But how can a brand benefit from this?
Easy, brands can capitalize any popular or latest meme and use it to connect with the right audience. However, while doing so it is important that the business realizes the thin line between absurd humor and healthy humor. Memes have the power to make or break your brand — choose wisely.
This is an example of a meme — Jimmy Jones posted back in 2016.
7. User Generated Content
User-generated content is exactly what the name suggests — content created by the users rather than the brand. Under this, the target audience plays the role of a marketeer. UGC can be in any form from images, posts, and campaigns to articles, videos, reviews, and more.
UGC is used when a business wants to increase its user engagement on social media platforms. This as a result ensures brand loyalty and trust with the followers. An example of UGC is a campaign by Coca Cola “share a coke.” This was launched back in 2011 and the consumers posted a picture of a coke bottle with their name on it using the hashtag #shareacoke.
8. Crowdsourcing
Have you ever participated in a brand’s campaign where they asked you for ideas and content? Well, that’s crowdsourcing. It is basically branded engaging its customers in an interactive gathering and asking for their input in terms of new ideas, content, or services.
Through this, the followers feel welcomed and heard. For instance, a brand invites its followers to choose any one of the three names for their next new product. They could also use crowdsourcing to determine the best competitive pricing.
9. Hashtag
Hashtags in the social media world means a word or phrase with # in the beginning. This is a very essential tool to increase reach and exposure. The purpose of a hashtag is to connect several posts on social media on a similar topic with one another. This way reaching a similar post is easier, just click on the hashtag and you will land on hundreds of similar posts.
So if you want to learn about something you can simply search the specific hashtag and find every public post under that hashtag. For instance, some clothing brands use the following hashtags:
- #clothing
- #fashion
- #apparel
- #streetwear
10. Impressions
Remember first impressions matter? Well, that’s the same case here. Impressions in social media marketing vocabulary basically mean the “number” of times your post appears on a social media user’s feed. For the number to count as an impression, user engagement is not necessary. The only thing that matters here is how many times your post pops up on the user’s feed.
Moreover, unlike reach, if your post appears on a user’s feed about 100 times, you would count this as 100 impressions and not 1 impression. This can be enhanced if you are leveraging great SEO tools for your own website.
Bottom Line
Remember, there’s a difference between knowing and learning.
To wrap it up, one thing that we all must know is that — learning social media marketing vocabulary is similar to learning a new dialect. And not just any dialect, but an important one. With the passing of time, social media will only continue to take over the world more and more. To be prepared, make sure you are up-to-date with all the social media terminologies.