Social Media Glossary

Running two versions of a post or ad that differ in exactly one element — headline, image, call to action — and comparing results. Changing more than one variable makes the winner impossible to explain.

The ranking system that decides which posts each user sees and in what order, based on predicted interest rather than chronology. It is why posting time matters less than early engagement.

A short written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers. It makes posts accessible to blind and low-vision users and gives platforms extra context about what the image contains.

The cap a platform places on how many API requests an app may make in a time window. Hitting it makes publishing or analytics tools fail temporarily until the window resets.

A process where drafts must be approved by a reviewer or client before they can publish. It is how agencies and regulated teams keep mistakes off live accounts.

How long after seeing or clicking an ad a conversion still gets credited to it — for example a 7-day click, 1-day view window. Widen the window and reported performance rises without anything really changing.

The consistent personality and tone a brand writes in across every channel, usually written down as a short guide so different people sound like the same brand.

How often and on which days you publish to each channel. A cadence you can sustain beats a heavier one you abandon after a month.

A single post containing several images or videos the viewer swipes through. Carousels typically earn more dwell time than one image because each swipe is another chance to re-engage.

The day-to-day work of replying to comments, messages and mentions, and keeping the conversation around a brand healthy. It is distinct from publishing, and usually more predictive of loyalty.

One of a handful of recurring themes a brand posts about — say education, product, culture and customer stories. Pillars keep the feed varied and stop every post from being a sales message.

Re-publishing proven evergreen posts on a rotation instead of writing every post from scratch. Refresh the wording and imagery each cycle so the feed does not read as repetitive.

A tracked action you defined as valuable: a purchase, sign-up, download or lead form submission. What counts as a conversion is a choice you make, so define it before you measure it.

Cost per mille — what you pay for a thousand impressions. It is the standard way to compare the cost of attention across platforms and campaigns.

Publishing the same content to several platforms at once. It saves time, but the result is stronger when the caption, format and aspect ratio are adapted per platform.

Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, as a percentage. It measures how compelling the post is at driving the next step, independent of how many people saw it.

A programme that equips employees to share company content from their own accounts. Personal accounts typically reach further than the brand page because their audiences are real networks.

Interactions (likes, comments, shares, saves, clicks) divided by a base — usually reach or impressions, sometimes followers. Always state which base you used, because the three give very different numbers.

Content that stays accurate and useful long after publication, unlike news or trend-driven posts. It is the material worth re-sharing months later.

A comment posted automatically right after the post itself, commonly used to park hashtags or a link so the caption stays clean.

The number of times a post was displayed, counting repeats. One person who sees the same post three times generates three impressions but only one unit of reach.

The single clickable URL on a profile, used on platforms where post captions are not linkable. It is usually pointed at a landing page listing several destinations.

An ad audience the platform builds by finding users who resemble a source list you supply — customers, site visitors or engagers. Quality depends almost entirely on how good and how specific the source list is.

A set of recurring time slots per channel that scheduled posts drop into automatically, so you add content without picking a specific time for each one.

The number of unique accounts that saw a post at least once. Reach is always lower than or equal to impressions; the gap between them tells you how often the average viewer saw it.

A short vertical video format built for full-screen discovery feeds — Reels on Instagram and Facebook, Shorts on YouTube, and the main feed on TikTok. Distribution leans on interest matching rather than who follows you.

Showing ads to people who already interacted with you — visited the site, watched a video, abandoned a cart. Also called remarketing; it usually converts far better than cold traffic.

Return on ad spend: revenue generated divided by the ad spend that produced it, expressed as a ratio such as 4:1. Unlike ROI it ignores costs other than media.

Preparing a post in advance and setting a date and time for it to publish automatically. It separates the work of writing from the timing of delivery.

An informal term for a sharp, unexplained drop in a post or account's distribution without a formal penalty notice. Most cases turn out to be ordinary ranking changes or a policy-limited topic rather than a hidden ban.

Your brand's share of all online conversation in your category, usually mentions about you divided by mentions about you plus your named competitors.

Monitoring public conversation for mentions of your brand, competitors and category — including posts that never tag you — to spot sentiment shifts, complaints and content ideas.

Users searching inside a social app — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube — instead of a web search engine. It makes clear, keyword-bearing captions and on-screen text worth writing deliberately.

A series of connected posts published in sequence so a longer argument or story fits a short-form feed. Common on X, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon.

User-generated content: photos, videos or reviews created by customers rather than the brand. It reads as more credible than brand-made assets, but you need explicit permission before reposting it.

The check mark on a profile. On some platforms it still signals a confirmed identity; on others it is now a paid subscription feature, so it no longer proves authenticity by itself.