More Social Media DEF-initions and Terms

You’ve got your ABCs, but there’s far more to the alphabet than that. When it comes to social media, there are plenty of words, terms, and catch phrases to know. So how about looking at a few more of them to expand your vocabulary!

D

Damage Control – An important term to know when things go wrong with your social media strategy. Damage control kicks into high gear when something you have posted is taken wrong or when a customer is disgruntled and doing their best to make sure the rest of the world knows about it. Damage control is about alleviating and/or minimizing the damage from someone’s smear campaign. While some things can be quietly ignored, most times it is important to recognize the problem, offer a brief apology (if necessary), and take the rest of the dialogue offline to avoid even more embarrassment or drama. It can provide an excellent opportunity to make changes to company policy, but your best bet is to have a plan in place before anything goes wrong, to know how to handle any social media gaffs or other problems.

Direct Message – Ever have someone say they are going to DM you? That is short for direct message, and it means they want to take your conversation out of public viewing. This might be to discuss details they would rather not have advertised (sometimes addresses, pricing, or policy issues for example) publicly. Think of it as email, but without the need to leave a social media site.

E

Endorsement – On LinkedIn, you have the ability to recognize someone for skills they have. When you are endorsed for skills, others get a bigger picture of your abilities and how many people have recognized you for them. This is beneficial two-fold, as you get to highlight your skills, plus illustrate the breadth of your networking community.

Engagement – Most social media sites are all about the engagement—the dialogue back and forth between members. You want your followers to see your content, but more importantly to like, comment, and share it. The more people who do that, the more potential there is for others to see your content. Get enough engagement within your community, and maybe your post will go viral! The true measure that people are seeing your content though is in their communication. Get them talking about you and too you, and your engagement ratings go up.

F

Featured Pages – While you might think your own page is the be all and end all, sometimes it makes sense to show a little love to others. On Facebook business pages, you have the option to feature pages which you follow. You might include customers of yours, organizations you are part of, causes you believe in, or pages from friends and family who could use a bit more publicity. Up to five featured pages will be shown on the right-hand side of your page, listed as ‘Pages Liked by This Page’. You can choose as many featured pages as you like and they will get rotated, but just make sure they align themselves with the message you are trying to put forth.

Followers – The simple definition of follower is someone who has subscribed to your page. You have the ability to follow people and pages on most social media sites. On Facebook you can follow a site without having to like it. If you like a page, its posts automatically shows up in your news feed. You also have the opportunity to decide whether you want to see a page’s posts first or by default. When you choose default, posts are shown depending upon Facebook’s algorithm.

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Again, this list is not exhaustive, but defines some more common terms you might stumble across during your forays into social media. If you want to know more, or have other terms you would like to see me discuss leave me a message.

Even better, FOLLOW ME on my social media sites to hear what I have to say about social media management and how to handle it.