Social media glossary

Alt text is a short written description of an image that screen readers read aloud and that shows when an image does not load.

Bluesky is a social network for short public posts, where you follow accounts and read feeds you can customize.

Brand voice is the consistent way a brand writes and speaks: word choice, tone and what it will and will not say.

A call to action (CTA) is the line in a post, image or page that tells the reader what to do next, such as "Book a call", "Read the guide" or "Reply with your answer".

A carousel post is a single post made of several images or video slides that the viewer swipes through in order.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who saw a link, ad or post and clicked it. You calculate it as clicks divided by impressions, as a percentage.

A content calendar is a schedule that lists what you will publish, where and when, so posts are planned ahead instead of improvised.

Content marketing is publishing useful material, such as articles, videos and guides, to attract and keep an audience that may later become customers.

A content pillar is a recurring topic a brand posts about, chosen to match its expertise and its audience's interests. Most brands pick three to five.

A content strategy is a plan for what content you create, for whom, on which channels, and what result it should produce.

CPC, or cost per click, is the amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad. It also names the pricing model where you pay per click instead of per impression.

CPM, or cost per mille, is the price you pay for 1,000 ad impressions. It measures the cost of being shown, not of being clicked.

Dark social is traffic and sharing that analytics tools cannot trace to a source, such as links copied into private messages, email or chat apps.

A DM, or direct message, is a private message sent to one person or a small group on a social platform instead of a public post or comment. DMs sit outside the public feed.

Engagement rate is the share of an audience that interacted with your content, such as likes, comments, shares and saves. The result changes with the denominator you pick.

Evergreen content stays useful and accurate long after it is published because it does not depend on a date, news event or season.

A Google Business Profile is a free listing that controls how a local business appears on Google Search and Maps, including hours, location, photos and reviews.

A hashtag is a word or phrase starting with the # symbol that labels a post by topic, so people can find it by search or by tapping the tag.

A hook is the first line, image or second of a post that gives the reader a reason to keep reading or watching. It decides whether the rest gets seen.

Impressions are the number of times content was shown on a screen. One person who sees a post three times adds three impressions.

Influencer marketing is paying or gifting creators to promote a brand's products to their own audiences.

Mastodon is free, open-source microblogging software run as many independent servers that exchange posts with each other over the ActivityPub protocol.

An MCP server is a program that exposes data and actions to an AI application through the Model Context Protocol, so the assistant can use them with your approval.

A media kit is a short document that presents a creator or brand to partners and press, with audience figures, past work, rates and contact details.

A micro-influencer is a creator with a smaller, focused following that brands pay or gift to promote products. Definitions of the size range vary between sources.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems such as files, databases, tools and workflows.

Organic reach is the number of unique accounts that see your content without paid promotion. It comes from followers, shares and platform recommendations.

A Pin on Pinterest is a saved bookmark that can be an image, video or product. People keep Pins on boards.

Reach counts the unique accounts that saw your content. Impressions count every time it was shown, including repeat views by the same account.

A Reel is a short vertical video on Instagram and Facebook that can be recommended to people who do not follow the account.

An RSS feed is a machine-readable file that lists a site's latest items, each with a title, link and summary, so tools can pick up new content automatically.

A shadowban is a claim that a platform limits who sees your content without telling you. Platforms rarely use the word and do not confirm it.

Social commerce is selling products inside a social platform, so people can discover, choose and buy without leaving the app.

Social listening is tracking public mentions of a brand, product, competitor or topic across social platforms, then reading them for patterns and reasons.

A social media algorithm is the set of rules a platform uses to rank and choose which posts each person sees in their feed.

A social media audit is a review of your accounts' profiles, content and results against your goals, to decide what to keep, fix or stop.

Social media management is the daily work of planning, publishing, replying to and reporting on a brand's social accounts.

Social media marketing is the use of social platforms to reach an audience, build a brand and drive actions such as visits, signups or sales.

Social proof is evidence that other people use or approve of something, such as reviews, testimonials, follower counts or customer photos.

A thread is a series of connected posts from one author, each replying to the last, so a longer idea reads in order. X, Threads and Bluesky all support them.

Threads is a text-based social app from Meta, linked to Instagram accounts, where people post short updates and reply in conversation.

UGC, short for user-generated content, is any post, photo, video or review that a customer or fan creates about a brand without the brand producing it.

UTM parameters are tags added to a link's URL that tell analytics software where a visit came from, such as the source, medium and campaign.

White label means a product made by one company and sold under another company's brand. The buyer shows its own name, logo and domain.