If you’re looking to jump into the world of social media, you may not be savvy to all the terms we use. Well, you’re in luck because we have your glossary of social media management terms this week!
This field is evolving and expanding. And recently, Brooke Sellas and Mark Schaefer covered the increasing demand for social media marketing roles on The Marketing Companion.
If you’re curious about some of the details, then read on for our B Squared Media glossary of social media management terms.
Community Management Terms
Our social media community management is essential to brands. Customer care via social is on the rise and will be the dominant communication channel by 2024. Here are some terms you need to know when discussing community management.
- Community management is the management of an online community. We do this through engagement on social media, typically focused on a brand or business. At B Squared Media, we use SproutSocial to effectively manage online communities in addition to doing ‘native check-ins’.
- A Community Manager (CMGR) is someone who engages with a brand’s online community on behalf of the brand. They immerse themselves in the brand’s tone of voice, product/service, and act as an extension of that brand. In other words, they grow and manage social media communities.
- Native Check-Ins are when CMGRs log in directly to the social media platform (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). They are double-checking that nothing was overlooked and loads correctly (because we all know technology can be glitchy).
- Customer Care is a proactive way for community managers to assist a brand’s customers. They engage, assist, and acknowledge customers. You can take our quiz to see how your customer care efforts stand out. And to learn more, visit B Squared Media or watch Brooke Sellas (CEO/Founder) and Carrie Keenan (Director of Customer Care) discuss it on our YouTube channel.
- Engagement is actively liking, commenting, or answering DM’s (direct messages). Engagement can be for positive and negative comments. In fact, B Squared Media believes in engaging with the positive as much as the negative. Loyalty is earned through acknowledgment of all user comments.
- Hide. Ignore. Ban. Ah…this one is fun! Our CMGR team hides spam on a weekly basis (typically on Facebook). Subsequently, ignoring comes into play with passive-aggressive or rude comments. Finally, CMGRs ban users from a brand’s social media pages when they become a threat to the online community.
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Social Media Management Terms
We couldn’t do a glossary of social media management terms without covering social media management (SMM) itself. The world of SMM involves social listening, customizing strategies, as well as creating and sharing content.
- A Social Media Manager (SMM) is someone who wears many hats. They develop social media strategies which include content curation, social listening, and weekly reports for clients. In essence, an SMM needs to be very organized!
- Social Listening is a process of learning or understanding what a community is saying about a brand online. We believe conversations start with listening, which is exactly why brands need to listen to their audience. You can use social listening tools to gather data about what your audience is saying. A few benefits of social listening are shown in the image below:
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- Content Curation is finding and sharing information (usually articles and blogs) that your audience will find helpful.
- Tagging (as reporting) connects conversations and sentiment from your social media community to your brand. Users will mention a brand or product to get their attention (positive or negative). By tagging (or organizing) these comments or mentions, your brand can visually see the conversations by categories or topics, and the sentiment behind each.
- Tagging and mentions help engage users who are talking about your brand or company, and it doubles as customer feedback for both positive and negative reviews. If the sentiment is negative, the CMGR steps in to diffuse the situation and offer assistance and an apology. For positive mentions, tagging is just as important for continued engagement (see UGC below).
- UGC simply stands for ‘user-generated content’. First, social media managers reach out to users who tag a brand in their posts and request permission to reshare it on the brand’s account. As a result, this is highly effective for community engagement and helps build loyalty. As you can see below, the brand tags the user, giving them the proper photo credit.
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Paid Media Management Terms
Your glossary of social media terms isn’t finished until we cover paid media management. Paid media is basically online advertising and it yields faster results than organic social media. Read this if you’d like to know how long it takes for your online ads to work.
- The Paid Media Manager and Ad Coordinator are the team members who check on your ads and make optimizations to your campaigns. From building the campaigns to regularly reviewing the stats, analyzing keywords, and tracking ad performance to ensure that your costs per result are in line with your goals.
- Paid Media is exactly how it sounds. Paid promotions and ads come with the intention of driving traffic (which equals sales). Ideally, paid media coupled with social listening helps the team understand their target audience.
- Organic social is free advertising. In particular – UGC, utilizing hashtags to drive users to your page, and having CMGRs build relationships with the community.
- A landing page is a static destination page where you aim to drive visitors. Unlike a homepage, the landing page is aimed at turning visitors into customers.
- Cost per click (CPC) is the price being paid for each user click on an ad campaign. Obviously, this is important for the digital marketing team.
- Return on Investment (ROI) measures the efficiency of an investment. In other words, it’s the ratio between net income and investment. You can learn more about how to calculate ROI here.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) gauge progress towards your end result. Not only does this help check where you stand, but also helps you redirect, if needed.
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- Click Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of clicks your paid ad generates based on how often your ad is shown. The higher CTR, the higher your ad score. And when your ad score is higher its position increases, thus lowering your CPC.
Your Glossary Of Social Media Management Terms
All in all, social media management is continuing to grow in 2021. If you don’t already have a social media management team, then this is your friendly reminder that the support and expertise can be a great investment!
As a result of this industry growth, the terms, roles, and functions are continuing to grow as well. Online customer care and paid media are becoming everyday terms. As they continue to evolve, so will your glossary of social media management terms.
What social media management term would you add to this list? Share with us in the comments below!
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