If you have no clue what an e meme is, or you’re baffled about PPC and B2B (and the vast array of other digital marketing terms), then this is the blog for you.
Whether you want to create a social media presence for your brand or delve into email marketing there’s a LOT to think about. This process can sometimes seem overwhelming and all of the acronyms and techy terms definitely don’t help.
So, here it is.
The complete guide to buzzwords, acronyms, terms and definitions in social media and digital marketing. And, because this blog is packed to the rafters with info we’ve put together a handy index.
Index
Feel free to select the terms you’re struggling with from the list below.
A/B Testing – Algorithm – Analytics – Audience – Ads Manager – Avatar – B2B – B2C – Bio – Boosted Post – Brand Advocate – Brand Awareness – Chatbot – Clickbait – Click Through Rate – Content Marketing – Conversion Rate – Cost Per Click – Cover Photo – Cross-channel – Crowdsourcing – Direct Message – Disappearing Content – Engagement Rate – Evergreen Content – Feed – Follower – FOMO – Geotargeting – Hashtag – Impressions – Meme – E-Meme – Newsjacking – Performance Marketing – PPC – Platform – Relevance Score – Retargeting – ROI – Social Listening – Targeting – Traffic – Trending – User-Generated Content – Viral
A/B Testing
A/B testing is also known as split testing.
This is a basic comparison method which measures the effectiveness of two campaigns against each other to see which performs best.
A/B testing is commonly used in social media posts, email marketing and online advertising, but can play an important role in understanding the user’s experience in any online application.
An easy way to use A/B testing to make better decisions is to start by changing a single element on say a post or ad.
For example, you could change the headline or image. This will allow you to see which headline or image has performed the best and favour the most successful variant.
Ads Manager
Ads Manager is a tool on Facebook which is used to create, manage and analyse your Facebook ads. You can also use it to manage your ad campaigns on Instagram.
Ads manager has lots of features for targeting and budgeting your ads.
Algorithm
An algorithm in its simplest form is a step by step procedure or set of rules which allows you to solve a problem or achieve a goal.
Algorithms are all uniquely created depending on their purpose. For instance, a recipe is an algorithm as it involves a certain number of steps performed in a specific order.
When we speak about algorithms in relation to social or digital marketing the same basic theory applies.
In social media, most references to ‘algorithm’ are related to ‘feed algorithm’, which is the set of rules which the social network uses to decide which posts appear first in your feed.
These rules change on a regular basis. For example, Facebook recently changed its algorithm to prioritise posts with lots of comments.
Similarly, Google’s algorithm is a complex system of rules which determines which results appear in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The main objective is to produce the most relevant and best quality results.
Analytics
Analytics in general terms is a way of interpreting and finding patterns in data.
When it comes to digital marketing the term analytics usually refers to data about a website or social media page.
Google Analytics and Search Console are the two main tools which can be used to find out information about your website. You can look at data such as total visitors to your website, where these visitors have found you and for how long they have looked at your website.
For social media tools such as Facebook Insights allow you to monitor data such as page views, actions on your page, post reach and much more.
Audience
The term audience usually refers to the group of people you’re able to reach on social media.
In simple terms, this refers to your page followers plus anyone who has viewed or interacted with your content in their feed.
People who see your content that aren’t page followers are those that have seen your post via a follower share or comment.
Increasing your audience is one of the best ways to spread brand awareness on social media.
The easiest way to do this is to encourage your followers to share and comment on your posts.
Avatar
An avatar is a small image that represents you either on a social network or platforms such as Google My Business.
An avatar is also known as your profile picture and it can be a real photo of an individual, a business logo, or a graphic.
B2B
B2B means business to business. It’s a business which sells products or provides services to other businesses.
B2B businesses tend to have a more corporate approach and use social platforms such as LinkedIn to market to potential clients.
B2C
A B2C or business to customer business sells directly to its customers.
When it comes to social media marketing, B2C companies often use platforms such as Facebook or Instagram where they provide customer care and create interesting content which promotes brand loyalty.
Bio
Bio or biography is a short description which tells people who you or your business are.
It can also be used to share links to your website, products or various social accounts.
Boosted post
A boosted post is essentially a post which is promoted to people outside of your audience.
When you boost a post on Facebook you are paying to increase its reach.
Boosted posts are not the same as Facebook ads as they start out as a standard post.
You can boost posts on Facebook very easily from your page or feed without using Ads Manager. And you can still target a specific audience in the same way you do in Facebook Ads.
Brand Advocate
A brand advocate refers to someone on social media who posts positive messages, leaves good reviews, or promotes your brand on social platforms.
Brand advocates are people with large followings that and an image or values which align with the brand they are advocating.
They are essentially a paid partner and are commonly known as ‘Influencers’.
Brand advocates also commonly encourage people to use a product or service off-line or through word-of-mouth.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is the level of familiarity or awareness that consumers have of your brand.
A good way to increase brand awareness is via social media marketing.
Brand awareness can be estimated by looking at the number of impressions or reach that your content has achieved rather than engagements, clicks or sales.
Chatbot
A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence program that can interact with a customer on behalf of a business.
Chatbots can be implemented in apps such as Facebook Messenger or Slack.
They provide customer service and answers to frequently asked questions, they can even set up appointments automatically.
Clickbait
You won’t believe this until you see it…
Clickbait
In a nutshell, Clickbait is a manipulative post or article which uses controversial or astonishing wording or images to convince users to click on it.
However, once the user clicks through to the content it is often completely unrelated to the headline or is of a very low quality.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click Through Rate is the percentage of people that see your content and click on it.
CTR can be calculated for organic results on search engine results pages (SERP), Google Ads, social posts and social ads.
It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks which your web snippet on the SERP or post on social achieved by the number of impressions (the amount of people that ‘see’ your listing) which it generated multiplied by 100.
For example, if your Facebook post gained 100 impressions and 5 people clicked on it your CTR would be 5%
Content Marketing
This is a marketing tactic which is focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant content aimed at a business’ target customer.
Content marketing usually comes in the form of blogs, social media posts, newsletters and influencer content.
The ultimate aim of content marketing is to engage and inform the customer driving them to complete a profitable action.
Conversion Rate (CVR)
Conversion rate refers to the number of users whom upon viewing your content take action.
In social media, your conversion rate is calculated by the percentage of users who see your post or ad complete a pre-defined goal. This could be clicking through to your page, leaving a comment or liking a post.
When we talk about conversion rate in relation to SERP’s or Google Ads it’s slightly different.
You can work out the conversion rate from the number of users that see your content or ad and click through to your website.
On-site, conversion rates usually refer to the number of users who complete a goal on your website. This could be filling in a contact form, making an enquiry or completing a purchase.
CVR is calculated in the same way as CTR – by dividing the number of actions which your content achieved by the number of impressions which is generated.
For example, if your website had 300 clicks and 5 people made a purchase then your conversion rate is 1.6%
Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per click is a term used in both social and Google Ads. It refers to the average amount of money which you have paid for each click on your ad.
The lower the cost per click, the more interaction you will achieve for your budget.
For example, if you had a budget of £30 per day and your average CPC was £0.75 your ad would be displayed until 40 people had clicked on to it. After this, your ad would no longer be displayed.
If you were paying £0.35 per click with a budget of £30 per day your ad would be shown to 85 people before it stopped appearing.
CPC can vary enormously and takes into account lots of different factors. For more information on these factors and to find out how we gain higher ad positions for a lower cost per click read our blog post here.
Cover Photo or Header Image
Your cover photo is the visual in place at the top of your social media profile.
Just as important as your avatar is your cover image.
This ‘prime real estate’ and the first thing that people see when they land on your social page or Google My Business profile.
It’s important to get the imagery right.
A good cover photo or image will complement your profile picture and show off your brand or products.
Cross-channel
Cross-channel marketing refers to content which is displayed across numerous platforms.
For example, if you posted content across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter which all relayed the same message this would be known as cross-channel marketing.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a term used when marketing to a large group of people in order to generate ideas and content via social network.
It builds brand loyalty and allows followers to feel involved and engaged with your brand.
It’s also really solid consumer research.
Examples of crowdsourcing could be inviting your followers to submit a name for a new product with the winner receiving the product as a prize.
Direct message (DM)
A DM refers to a direct message sent on social media. This is a private message which is only visible to the sender and recipient(s).
Disappearing Content
Sometimes known as ephemeral content, disappearing content are posts on social media which disappear (delete themselves) automatically after a set amount of time.
Instagram/Facebook and Snapchat Stories are perfect examples of this, disappearing after 24 hours.
Disappearing content can be effectively used to create urgency and encourage immediate engagement. This is often referred to as ‘Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)’, but more on that later!
Engagement rate
Engagement rate is a metric used in social media which tells you how successfully a post is motivating people to interact with it and is calculated in the same way as CTR and CVR.
Divide the number of people who engaged with your post by the number of people who saw it and multiply the number by 100%.
Engagements / Engagements x 100
Working out your engagement rate allows you to create more successful posts by replicating the successful content or image type.
The higher the engagement rate the more compelling your post.
Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is a term used in content marketing to describe content which isn’t time-sensitive, ages well and retains its value over time.
Posts or links to evergreen content are perfect for use on social media as they don’t lose their impact based on the date they are posted.
For example, an article on the basics of health and well-being is more likely to be evergreen than an article about the latest weight-loss product.
If you’ve ever asked Google a question and received blog posts from years and years past, this is a great example of evergreen content.
Feed
A feed is a generic term for the stream of content which you see from other users on social media.
Follower
The term follower refers to a user who has followed your page or profile on social media.
These users will then see your posts in their feed.
The number of followers which your page or profile indicates the number of people who see your posts in their feed.
FOMO
As mentioned in our explanation of disappearing content FOMO stands for Fear of Missing Out.
FOMO is used by marketers to create a sense of urgency within the potential customer.
This can range from a special offer in an Instagram Story to a countdown clock on a website sale.
Inspiring FOMO encourages users to act there and then rather than buying at a later date.
Geotargeting
Geotargeting is the technique of adjusting your ad content or only displaying it based on the location of a user.
This tool can be used in Google Ads, as well as social ads such as Facebook ads manager.
This allows you to create specific ads based on where they will be shown.
For example, you could set up an Ad promoting a new gym and only show it to users in a 10-mile radius of the gym’s location.
Hashtag #
A hashtag is a way of labelling your posts on social media. Hashtags also allow posts with the same hashtag to be connected to each other.
If you are looking for a specific item you can post a related hashtag into the search bar and it will display all results using that hashtag.
For example, a user seeking the latest items in sustainable style could search #EcoFashion and all related results would be displayed.
As a marketer, you can also follow the popularity of hashtags to see which ones you should include in your content.
Platforms such as Instagram will show you how many posts with a specific hashtag exist. Whilst, LinkedIn tells you how many users are following a specific hashtag.
Impressions
Impressions refer to the number of users that have ‘seen’ your post, ad or website snippet on social media or in the Google search engine results page.
Meme
The term ‘meme’ originally referred to any content that spread, multiplied, and changed in a viral way. Meme is now used to describe a funny piece of text, image or video. (Not to be confused with E Meme-that’s next).
Unique in their ability to let users ‘get in on the joke’ and create their own variations which they often then share.
Memes produced by brands are very tricky to navigate and can often backfire if not executed perfectly. However, if a brand has clever content and a healthy sense of irony it can really connect with their audience.
A really good example of a meme created by a brand is this image by Sainsbury’s poking fun at the similarity between their staff uniforms and the Beyonce/Adidas collaboration.
#SainsBey
E Meme
Now you know what a meme is (see above) you’re ready for the next level of meme, the ‘E Meme’.
To imagine the E Meme you need to think about the most obscure meme you’ve ever seen and double it. An E Meme is a meme that has gone so viral that you would need to live in a cave not to have seen it.
The meaning of the ‘E’ in E Meme is largely unknown, and is cited to stand for various things such as Epic, Earrape?? Explosion and even Empty.
Newsjacking
Newsjacking is the tactic of creating social media content which ‘piggybacks’ on to current events.
This method of marketing is most often used to engage with hashtag trends on platforms such as Twitter.
Performance Marketing
This term refers to any type of marketing which measures the success of very specific goals.
It encompasses Google Ads, Shopping Campaigns, Remarketing and Social Media Ads.
PPC – Pay per click
PPC is a term used to describe paid/performance marketing on platforms such as Google Ads.
It refers to a very popular method of advertising, paying each time a user clicks on your ad.
PPC is not the only method of digital advertising. Both Google Ads and social media platforms allow you to structure your ads so that you pay in a number of different ways.
For example, this could be cost per conversion or by impressions.
Platform
For social, the platform refers to a specific network or channel. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are all social media platforms.
When it comes to web development, the term is used to describe the system with which the website has been created e.g. WordPress or Squarespace.
Relevance Score
Relevance score is a metric which is attributed to an ad on social media.
Your ad’s relevance score indicates how well your target audience is responding to your ad on a scale of 1 to 10.
The score is based on things such as clicks or likes, and also takes into account negative feedback such as users selecting “I don’t want to see this ad”.
Retargeting
Retargeting is a marketing technique which involves targeting users who have previously interacted with your page or website with an ad.
One example could be an ‘abandoned basket’ ad that displays a discount code for a product that was added to a shopping basket but was not purchased.
ROI – Return On Investment
ROI or return on investment measures the actual revenue which has been created as a result of purchasing customers.
To calculate your ROI for advertising, there is a basic formula to follow:
The net value of sales minus the total cost of your ads equals ROI.
For example, if your Google Ads cost you £120 per week and you made 30 sales of a product with an average net profit of £25, your ROI would be £630.
This only really applies when you are measuring sales or sign-ups, as activities to raise brand awareness or increase followers are much harder to quantify.
Social Listening
Social listening is a term related to consumer insights or market research.
It is how digital marketers track trends and conversations on social media, using specialised software to gather mentions, comments and hashtags around key terms.
These results allow companies to find out what users are saying about their brand or market place and allow them to identify trends.
Targeting
Targeting is an advertising term which refers to how you select the audience to which you would like your ads to be shown.
Both Google and social ads allow you to target potential customers based on specific factors. These can include location, interests, online activity and a number of other factors.
Traffic
Traffic is the number of web users who visit a website or page.
Different to impressions, this requires the user to have clicked on to a site or page rather than have just seen it listed.
Trending
The term trending refers to a topic or event which has experienced a sudden surge in popularity online.
Social networks such as Twitter display trending topics and hashtags as part of their search function.
User-generated content (UGC)
Positive user-generated content is the holy grail of digital marketing.
This usually refers to fan-created content promoting a brand or business and can be in the form of posts, videos, images, reviews etc.
This third-party mark of approval boosts a brands credibility and increases consumer trust in their business.
Brands often use brand advocates to create this positive UGC to encourage users to engage with their social media content.
UGC such as positive reviews on Google My Business or Trust Pilot also serves the same purpose for websites.
Viral
It’s gone Viral! The ultimate buzzword in digital marketing.
The term viral describes a piece of content which has spread exponentially online and typically occurs on social media.
Viral content occurs because a huge number of people share it with their followers. Their followers, in turn, share the same content to their followers and so on. The ultimate snowball effect.
Creating content that goes viral is really sought after as it means you get a huge audience without spending a penny. However, if your content is going to spread far and wide, make sure it’s for the right reasons.
E Meme, Social Listening, Geotargeting: as a digital marketer you need to know your stuff, and now you do.
Understanding digital marketing acronyms and terminology might at first glance seem like an impossible task, but the more you come across these terms the more familiar with them you will become.
And now you’ve got your head around this batch of marketing buzzwords (even E meme) you can get ready for the inevitable swathe of new ones which are right around the corner.
If you need help with anything digital marketing then don’t hesitate to get in touch. Just drop us a line or give us a call. We’ll be happy to help.
