Social Media Glossary

Attribution is the process of assigning credit for a sale or conversion to the marketing channels and touchpoints that influenced it.

A/B testing is comparing two versions of a piece of content (or ad, headline, image, CTA) against each other to see which performs better on a chosen metric.

The best time to post on social media is the window when your specific audience is most active and most likely to engage with new content.

Brand voice is the consistent personality, tone, and language style a brand uses across every piece of communication, from social posts to support emails.

Brand identity is the complete system of visual and verbal elements — logo, colors, typography, voice, imagery — that makes a brand recognizable and consistent across every touchpoint.

A content pillar is a recurring theme or category that a brand uses to organize its social media content and keep messaging consistent over time.

A content calendar is a scheduled plan that maps out what a brand will publish, on which channels, and on which dates — usually visualized as a monthly grid.

A call to action (CTA) is a clear instruction that tells the audience exactly what to do next — comment, click, save, share, buy, or follow.

A carousel is a multi-image or multi-video social post that users swipe through horizontally, supporting up to 10 slides on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who saw a link and clicked it — calculated as clicks divided by impressions, multiplied by 100.

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action — purchase, signup, download — out of the total who visited or saw an offer.

Content repurposing is the practice of taking one piece of content and reshaping it into multiple formats and channels — turning a single asset into 5-10 unique posts.

Community management is the practice of actively engaging with a brand's audience — replying to comments, DMs, mentions, and reviews — to build relationships and trust at scale.

Dark social is content sharing that happens through private channels — DMs, group chats, email, and screenshots — and cannot be tracked by standard analytics.

Engagement rate is the percentage of an audience that interacts with a piece of content — likes, comments, shares, and saves divided by reach or followers.

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant and continues driving traffic, engagement, or conversions long after it is published — months or even years later.

A hashtag is a keyword preceded by the # symbol that groups social media content into discoverable, searchable topics.

A hook is the opening line, frame, or visual of a piece of content designed to stop the scroll and convince a viewer to keep watching, reading, or engaging.

Influencer marketing is paying or partnering with creators who have built an engaged audience to promote a brand's products or services to that audience.

A micro-influencer is a creator with a relatively small but highly engaged audience — typically 1,000 to 100,000 followers — known for niche expertise and trust.

The marketing funnel is the journey a customer takes from first awareness of a brand to repeat purchase, usually broken into stages: awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention.

Organic social is content posted for free that earns reach through the algorithm. Paid social is content boosted with ad spend to guarantee reach to a chosen audience.

Reach is the number of unique users who saw a piece of content. Impressions is the total number of times the content was displayed, including repeat views.

A Reel is Instagram's short-form vertical video format, typically 15 to 90 seconds long, designed for full-screen viewing and algorithmic discovery.

Social commerce is the process of selling products directly inside social media platforms — discovery, browsing, and checkout all happen without leaving the app.

Social listening is the practice of tracking mentions, hashtags, and conversations across social media to understand what people are saying about a brand, competitors, or industry.

A social media algorithm is the ranking system a platform uses to decide which posts each user sees and in what order, based on signals like engagement, recency, and relevance.

A Story is a vertical, full-screen post that disappears after 24 hours, used for casual updates, polls, link clicks, and direct conversations with existing followers.

Short-form video is any vertical video under 90 seconds, designed for full-screen mobile viewing and algorithmic feeds — TikToks, Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest Idea Pins.

Save rate is the percentage of viewers who bookmark a post for later — a high-weight signal in the Instagram and TikTok algorithms because it indicates the content has lasting value.

Share rate is the percentage of viewers who send a post to someone else via DM, story, or external link — the second-strongest engagement signal after saves.

Social proof is the psychological tendency to assume that the actions of others are correct — used in marketing as visible evidence (reviews, ratings, customer counts, press logos) that other people trust a brand.

User-generated content (UGC) is any content — photos, videos, reviews, social posts — created by customers or fans rather than the brand itself.