Ultimate Glossary of Social Media Terms

52) Header image

A header image refers to the large photo displayed at the top of your profile on Twitter. The header image is also commonly referred to as the banner image on LinkedIn or the cover image on Facebook.

45) GaggleAMP

GaggleAMP is a social media marketing platform that provides businesses with the ability to leverage its employee's online presence to increase brand awareness and expand its reach.

48) Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a free web browser produced by Google that fully integrates with its online search system as well as its other applications.

75) Newsjacking

Newsjacking refers to the practice of capitalizing on the popularity of a news story to amplify your sales and marketing success.

23) Conversion Rate

Conversion rate refers to a common metric tracked in social media that is the percentage of people who completed an intended action (i.e. filling out a form, following a social account, etc.).

24) Craigslist

Craigslist is a popular online commerce site in which users sell a variety of goods and services to other users. The service has been credited for causing the reduction of classified advertising in newspapers across the United States.

25) Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. It provides free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

59) Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time, direct text-based communication between two or more people. More advanced instant messaging software clients also allow enhanced modes of communication, such as live voice or video calling.

39) Flash Mob

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.

11) BoardReader

BoardReader is a free search engine that allows users to search for keywords only in posts and titles of online forums, a popular form of social networking.

18) Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence is a shared intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision-making in social networks.

54) Hashtag

A hashtag is a tag used on a variety of social networks as a way to annotate a message. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a "#" (i.e. #InboundMarketing). Social networks use hashtags to categorize information and make it easily searchable for users.

68) Lurker

A lurker online is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, social network, or other interactive system, but rarely or never participates in the discussion.

71) Meme

A meme on the internet is used to describe a thought, idea, joke, or concept that's widely shared online. It is typically an image with text above and below it, but can also come in video and link form. A popular example is the "I Can Has Cheezburger?" cat meme that turned into an entire site of memes.

72) Mention

A mention is a Twitter term used to describe an instance in which a user includes someone else's @username in their tweet to attribute a piece of content or start a discussion.

74) News Feed

A news feed is literally a feed full of news. On Facebook, the News Feed is the homepage of users' accounts where they can see all the latest updates from their friends. The news feed on Twitter is called Timeline.

78) Permalink

A permalink is an address or URL of a particular post within a blog or website that remains indefinitely unchanged.

80) Podcast

A podcast is a series of digital media files, usually audio, that are released episodically and often downloaded through an RSS feed.

2) AMA

AMA is an acronym for "ask me anything," which originated in a popular subreddit where users will use the term to prompt questions from other users. Since its inception, the term has gone on to be used in other online social settings, such as this discussion on Inbound.org.

21) Community Manager

The community manager is responsible for building and managing the online communications for a business in an effort to grow an online community.

49) Google Documents

Google Documents is a group of web-based office applications that includes tools for word processing, presentations, spreadsheet analysis, etc. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.

50) Google+

Google+ is Google's social network. It serves as a platform for users to connect with friends, family, and professionals while enabling them to share photos, send messages, and engage with content. Google uses the "+1" to serve as the equivalent to a Like on Facebook or Instagram.

51) Handle

Handle is the term used to describe someone's @username on Twitter. For example, HubSpot's Twitter handle is @HubSpot.

55) HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a programming language for web pages. Think of HTML as the brick-and-mortar of pages on the web. It provides content and structure while CSS supplies style. HTML has changed over the years, and it is on the cusp of its next version: HTML5.

82) PPC

PPC is an acronym for pay per click. Pay per click is an online advertising model in which advertisers display ads on various websites or search engines and pay when a visitor clicks through. Bid-based PPC involves an auction in which advertisers compete with other advertisers by setting the max bid -- or highest amount they're willing to pay -- for each click. Each time a visitor triggers the ad spot, the auction process pans out to select which ad will be displayed.

76) Pandora

Pandora is a social online radio station that allows users to create stations based on their favorite artists and types of music.

66) Listed

The act of being "listed" on Twitter refers to when a user curates a custom list of Twitter users to more easily keep tabs on their tweets.

85) Real

Time Marketing - Real-time marketing is a strategy that requires marketers to publish timely content as news breaks. For example, Oreo tweeted this quick-witted response to the 2013 Super Bowl blackout as it was unfolding.

84) Real

Time Search - Real-time search is the method of indexing content being published online into search engine results with virtually no delay.

70) Meerkat

Meerkat is an app that allows users to stream live video from their mobile devices.

53) Hangout

A Hangout is a video service on Google+ that allows you to video chat with up to 10 Google+ users are a time. You can name these chats, watch YouTube videos during them, open a Google Doc with colleagues, and much more.

61) Like

A Like is an action that can be made by a Facebook or Instagram user. Instead of writing a comment or sharing a post, a user can click the Like button as a quick way to show approval.

7) Bio

A bio on social media refers to a short bit of explainer text that explains who the user is. To see some examples, check out this roundup of some of the most amusing bios on Twitter.

19) Comment

A comment is a response that is often provided as an answer or reaction to a blog post or message on a social network.

69) Mashup

A content mashup contains multiple types of media drawn from pre-existing sources to create a new work. Digital mashups allow individuals or businesses to create new pieces of content by combining multiple online content sources.

46) Geotag

A geotag is the directional coordinates that can be attached to a piece of content online. For example, Instagram users often use geotagging to highlight the location in which their photo was taken.

1) AddThis

AddThis is a web-tracking technology company that offers a wide range of social media and content tools -- from responsive sharing buttons to custom follow buttons to recommended content plugins -- designed to help you increase engagement on your website and earn more followers on social media.

41) Forums

Also known as a message board, a forum is an online discussion site. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dial-up bulletin board system.

4) Application Programming Interface (API)

An API is a documented interface that allows one software application to interact with another application. An example of this is the Twitter API.

3) Algorithm

An algorithm is a set of formulas developed for a computer to perform a certain function. This is important in the social sphere as the algorithms sites like Facebook and Google use are critical for developing content promotion strategies.

5) Avatar

An avatar is an image or username that represents a person online, most often within forums and social networks.

31) Ebook

An ebook is an electronic version of a book. However, most ebooks are not actually available in print (unless you print them). These are typically published in PDF form. For marketers, ebooks commonly serve as lead generating content -- people must fill out a form to receive their ebook copy.

33) Endorsement

An endorsement on LinkedIn refers to an instance in which another LinkedIn user recognizes you for one of the skills you have listed on your profile.

56) Impressions

An impression refers to a way in which marketers and advertisers keep track of every time ad is "fetched" and counted.

6) Bitly

Bitly is a free URL shortening service that provides statistics for the links users share online. Bitly is popularly used to condense long URLs to make them easier to share on social networks such as Twitter.

10) Blog Talk Radio

Blog Talk Radio is a free web application that allows users to host live online radio shows.

8) Blog

Blog is a word that was created from two words: "web log." Blogs are usually maintained by an individual or a business with regular entries of content on a specific topic, descriptions of events, or other resources such as graphics or video. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

9) Blogger

Blogger is a free blogging platform owned by Google that allows individuals and companies to host and publish a blog typically on a subdomain. Example: yourblogname.blogspot.com

35) Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a provider of online event management and ticketing services. Eventbrite is free if your event is free. If you sell tickets to your event, Eventbrite collects a fee per ticket.

12) Bookmarking

Bookmarking online follows the same idea of placing a bookmark in a physical publication -- you're simply marking something you found important, enjoyed, or want to continue reading later. The only difference online is that it's happening through websites using one of the various bookmarking services available, such as Pocket, or right within your browser.

13) Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use design tool for non-designers and designers alike. The tool offers several templates that adhere to the required dimensions for sharable social images on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

14) Chat

Chat can refer to any kind of communication over the internet but traditionally refers to one-to-one communication through a text-based chat application, commonly referred to as instant messaging (IM) applications.

15) Circles

Circles are clusters of a user's friends, colleagues, family, or connections on Google+. You get to choose who goes in what Circle, and when you want to share content with only these individuals, you include that specific Circle in your post's sharing options.

16) Clickbait

Clickbait is a term to describe marketing or advertising material that employs a sensationalized headline to attract clicks. They rely heavily on the "curiosity gap" by creating just enough interest to provoke engagement.

17) Clickthrough Rate

Clickthrough rate is a common social media metric used to represent the number of times a visitor clickthrough divided by the total number of impressions a piece of content receives.

20) Compete

Compete is a web-based application that offers users and businesses web analytics. It also enables people to compare and contrast the statistics for different websites over time.

26) Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing, similar to outsourcing, refers to the act of soliciting ideas or content from a group of people, typically in an online setting.

27) Delicious

Delicious is a free online bookmarking service that lets users save website addresses publicly and privately online so they can be accessed from any device connected to the internet and shared with friends.

28) Digg

Digg is a social news website that allows members to submit and vote for articles. Articles with the most votes appear on the homepage of the site and subsequently are seen by the largest portion of the site's membership, as well as other visitors.

29) Direct Message

Direct messages -- also referred to as "DMs" -- are private conversations that occur on Twitter. Both parties must be following one another to send a message.

30) Disqus

Disqus is a comment system and moderation tool for your site. This service lets you add community management and social web integration to any site on any platform.

32) Employee Advocacy

Employee advocacy refers to the act of employees using their own social presence to increase the reach of the company and its content.

34) Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is a popular social media metric used to describe the amount of interaction -- likes, shares, comments -- a piece of content receives.

36) Facebook

Facebook is a social media platform founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. The site connects people with friends, family, acquaintances, and businesses from all over the world and enables them to post, share, and engage with a variety of content such as photos and status updates. The platform currently boasts around 1.49 billion active users.

37) Fans

Fans is the term used to describe people who like your Facebook Page.

40) Flickr

Flickr is a social network for online picture sharing. The service allows users to store photos online and then share them with others through profiles, groups, sets, and other methods.

43) Follow Friday (#ff)

Follow Friday is a trend via the hashtag #ff every Friday on Twitter. Users select other usernames and tweet them with #ff in their post, meaning they recommend following those Twitter users. There is debate whether this trend is past its prime.

44) Friends

Friends is the term used on Facebook to represent the connections you make and the people you follow. These are individuals you consider to be friendly enough with you to see your Facebook profile and engage with you.

47) GIF

GIF is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format. In social media, GIFs serve as small-scale animations and film clips. (Check out this round up of reaction GIFs used to illustrate our excitement when Facebook announced that they were supporting their functionality.)

42) Follower

In a social media setting, a follower refers to a person who subscribes to your account in order to receive your updates.

57) Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that uses permission-based marketing techniques to get found by potential customers, convert them into leads, customers, and advocates, and analyze the process along the way. Inbound marketing leverages tactics and tools such as SEO, blogging, social media, lead generation, email marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation, surveys, personalization, and CRM.

58) Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing application that lets users take photos, apply filters to their images, and share the photos instantly on the Instagram network and other social networks like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Foursquare. The app is targeted toward mobile social sharing, and has gained more than 300 million users.

60) Klout

Klout is a measure of social influence. The service allows users to connect various social accounts such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc., and then provides every user with his or her Klout score. The score is out of 100 -- the higher the score, the more influence it estimates you have in the social world.

62) Link Building

Link building is an aspect of search engine optimization in which website owners develop strategies to earn links to their site from other websites with the hopes of improving their search engine ranking. Blogging has emerged as a popular method of link building.

65) LinkedIn SlideShare

LinkedIn SlideShare is an online social network for sharing presentations and documents. Users can favorite and embed presentations as well as share them on other social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

63) LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site with over 380 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking.

64) LinkedIn Publishing

LinkedIn's publishing platform functions as a place where members can publish long-form posts that related to their professional interests and expertise. While this capability used to be limited to LinnkedIn Influencers only, the platform was opened up to everyone in 2014.

67) Live streaming

Live streaming is the act of delivering content over the internet in real-time. This term was popularized in social media by apps such as Meerkat and Periscope.

73) Native Advertising

Native content refers to a type of online advertising in which the ad copy and format adheres to the format of a regular post on the network it's being published on. The purpose is to make ads feel less like ads, and more like part of the conversation.

77) Periscope

Periscope is a social video app that allows users to broadcast live video from wherever they are. App users also have the ability to engage with others videos, browse live or recent broadcasts, and follow users to receive notifications.

79) Pinterest

Pinterest is a photo sharing social network that provides users with a platform for uploading, saving, and categorizing "pins" through collections called "boards." Boards are typically organized by theme, such as: Food & Drink, Women's Fashion, Gardening, etc. Users have the ability to "pin" and "repin" content that they like to their respective boards.

81) Pocket

Pocket is an app that enables users to manage a reading list of articles they've saved from the internet to read later. Pocket has an open API that allows it to integrate with over 500 applications including social networks like Twitter.

83) Quantcast

Quantcast provides website traffic and demographics for websites. The tool is primarily used by online advertisers looking to target specific demographics.

38) Favorite

Represented by the small star icon on Twitter, favoriting a tweet signals to the creator that you liked their content or post.

22) Connections

The LinkedIn equivalent of a Facebook 'friend' is a 'connection.' Because LinkedIn is a social networking site, the people you are connecting with are not necessarily people you are friends with, but rather professional contacts that you've met, heard speak, done business with, or know through another connection. Connections are categorized by: 1st degree, 2nd degree, and 3rd degree.