Social media best practices are enough to keep up with. When you factor in content, analytics, ads and more, your head will spin. Whether you manage your social media on your own or you’ve hired someone else to do so, these 6 buzzwords will help keep you afloat when understanding conversations surrounding the social media atmosphere.

Engagement: meaningful interactions and actions that users take on your social media posts and pages

Engagement can be defined using a number of different metrics including comments, likes, reactions, shares and clicks. Engagement is one of the most telling metrics of a healthy and interested audience. Historically, maximizing the number of followers you have has been the most desirable number, though recent stalls in growth have helped businesses understand the importance of a highly engaged audience – no matter the size. We talk more about why your follower count doesn’t matter here.

Impressions v. reach

Impressions: the number of times your post was viewed by any user
Reach: the unique number of users who saw your post

Impressions and reach are often confused and with good reason. They’re similar in definition, yet the value and results can differ greatly depending on your content and audience. Because impressions are tallied each time any person sees your content, while reach only counts each viewer, impressions are always higher than reach values.

So why don’t we just report on reach? Like your mother had to repeat herself to get you to clean your room, sometimes a user may need to see your message 2 or 3 times before he or she is convinced to take action. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s normal human nature. (Try telling your mom that.)

Organic v. paid performance

Organic: content and impressions achieved through completely non-paid efforts
Paid: content and impressions achieved with paid promotion and ads

Achieving high organic results is one of the most sought-after performance indicators in any campaign. Organic performance has the ability to diagnose the health of your efforts. It is truly telling of how your content is landing with your audience. Organic performance is often elevated when the content is highly shareable, impressive and viral.

High paid results mean that you still have a vast audience to reach and you’re targeting your content well for your preferred audience. It also means that you’re getting the most out of your budget spend by promoting content that resonates with your targeted audience.

Pay-to-Play: an atmosphere in which diminished organic platform reach forces businesses to allocate paid media budgets in order to be seen on social media

Unfortunately, as small business owners, we hear this term more often than we’d like to, but it is a reality we cannot fight. Facebook in particular, and subsequently Instagram, have caught on to businesses using platforms for profit and introduced roadblocks to organic growth, like limiting business page reach and visibility. While social media ads are still extremely affordable to use, gone are the days it was easy to grow and profit on social media without spending a dime. We encourage the use of paid media as a necessary business expense and have seen impressive client results with a wide range of monthly budgets.

Do you feel caught up on the lingo? If you’re still a bit lost, contact us today about managing the bridge. Our social media packages allow you to choose which pieces you need an extra hand with in order to be more successful on social media.

Header Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash