Social-media lingo, Part 1

Sometimes the social-media world can feel like a whole other planet, with its own unique etiquette, customs and language. If you’re an advisor just beginning to explore this strange new landscape — or an old pro — you need to be familiar with certain words and phrases. Enter the Financial Social Media dictionary, a list of need-to-know social-media lingo, broken down by platform. Here, we cover general social-media terms.

1. Authenticity: A trait valued on social media and blogs. Authenticity means consumers get to know the real person behind your firm.
2. Compliance: Social-media activity that meets the regulatory conditions set forth by FINRA and the SEC. This includes the process of archiving social-media communication.
3. CPC: Cost per click. This is how much you pay when someone clicks on your social-media ad.
4. CPM: Cost per 1,000 impressions. This is how much you pay when 1,000 people see your social-media ad.
5. Crowdsource: The process of reaching out online to a group of social-media users for opinion and feedback. Advisors can reach out to groups via LinkedIn or ask questions on Facebook or Twitter to see what resonates with their clients and prospects.
6. Editorial calendar: A schedule for planning when to post content across multiple social-media platforms.
7. Embed: Displaying a photo or video on one website while it is still being hosted on another. For example, you can embed a video from YouTube in your financial blog.
8. Engagement: Actions that occur on a post or update. This includes likes, comments and shares.
9. Financial blog: A “web log” on an advisor’s website. Advisors can use a financial blog to regularly create entries containing valuable content for their clients and prospects.
10. Financial hashtag: The dollar sign preceding a company’s abbreviated stock market name. (Example: $GOOG.)
11. Geo-tag: A label indicating the origin of a status update or tweet.
12. Hashtag: The pound sign preceding a word which classifies it as a conversation topic. (Example: #Advisor.) A hashtag will turn into a link for a search thread within your message. Originally used solely on Twitter, you can now use hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+.
13. Klout: A score which determines an individual’s social-media influence. This allows marketers to find influencers within the social space.
14. Optimization: The process of enhancing your social platforms and profiles to maximize their overall performance through such things as search, reach and engagement.
15. Reach: The number of people who view your post, update or ad.
16. Share: A feature that allows you to share a post or update with your network. Akin to a retweet on Twitter.
17. Tag: Labels a topic or person that is the subject of a post or comment. You can tag people in a status update, comment or blog.
18. Two-step verification: A security measure for logging on to social sites. In addition to a username and password, a user can be required to enter a code sent to a mobile device.
19. Viral: Describes content shared at a rapid rate.
20. Vlog: A blog consisting of video as opposed to text.

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Amy McIlwain is a professional speaker on social media and President of Financial Social Media, an online marketing firm specializing in the financial industry. She can be reached through her website www.financialsocialmedia.com and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.