Everyone has pet peeves. They can range from people not using their turn signal to writing a sentence containing a double negative. In the social media world, there are a slew of things that people get in a tiz about. For some people, it’s when someone likes their own Facebook post. For my friend Jacqueline, it’s when social media professionals use silly names for themselves like “guru” or “ninja.” For me, though, it’s even a bit nerdier.

Working in social media day in and day out, I’ve come to be very familiar with the terminology used to describe what I do. I know that someone who tweets is a Twitterer and I can even use the word virality (correctly) in a sentence. However, not everyone is as immersed in social media on a daily basis as I am, so they don’t always get the terminology quite right. I don’t blame them—there are numerous social media terms that are commonly misused by the masses.

So today I’ve compiled some of (what I’ve seen to be) commonly misused social media terms to help you, a friend or a loved one, talk a little nerdier about social media:

Your business has a “Page”, not a “Fan Page”

Back in 2007, Facebook first rolled out an option for businesses to get in on the social network. Your business could create an account, collect fans and place ads. Today, however, long gone are Fans and Fan Pages, and what your business has is simply a Page or Business Page.

Say goodbye to Facebook “Fans”

In mid 2010, Facebook Business Pages began collecting likes instead of fans. When discussing the number of people connected to your Page, refer to them as likes to avoid sounding archaic.

Different social networks = different ways to share

Social networks differ in many ways. So it’s not surprising that they each have their own way to share information. The correct names for the ways you share are as follows: Facebook = posts, Twitter = tweets, Pinterest = pins, YouTube = uploads, and Google+ = posts.

“Impressions” and “Reach” are not interchangeable terms

While they represent similar statistics, these two words have distinct meanings. Impressions are the number of times a post (tweet, ad, etc) is displayed, whereas reach is the number of unique people who saw it. In fact, reach is often lower than impressions, as one person can receive multiple impressions.

Infographics and Instructographics… say what?

In the most basic sense, an infographic is a visual representation of information, data or knowledge. However, in the social media world, we use the word infographic to talk about a very specific piece of content: one that uses icons, graphics and charts to make information easily digestible and shareable across the web.

Similar—yet different, hence the different name—is the instructographic. While, at first glance, it appears to be the same as an infographic, an instructographic uses icons an imagery to provide step-by-step instructions on how to do something.

 

Clearly, this isn’t a comprehensive list of social media terms. Hopefully, though, it will come in handy for those of you who enjoy talking nerdy…and want to ensure you’re doing it right.

Do you talk nerdy? What other terms would you add to this list? 

 

Thanks for the image, Miss Ritz. 

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