Glossary
Glossary of Key Terms
Plain definitions of the terms used throughout this guide.
- Editorial calendar
- A shared, forward-looking schedule of planned posts across all channels, used to coordinate a team and avoid collisions.
- Unified inbox
- A single view that aggregates comments, direct messages, and mentions from every connected social channel.
- Approval workflow
- A defined sequence of review and sign-off steps a post passes through before it is published.
- Engagement rate
- The share of an audience that interacts with a post (likes, comments, shares, saves) relative to reach or followers.
- Reach vs. impressions
- Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw content; impressions is the total number of times it was displayed, including repeats.
- Sentiment analysis
- Automatic classification of audience messages as positive, negative, or neutral to prioritize responses.
- Context-aware spam
- Junk or malicious comments that read as grammatically correct, human-like text and therefore bypass simple keyword filters.
- Data residency
- The geographic location where a service stores and processes your data — relevant for GDPR and EU compliance.
- Link-in-bio
- A single landing page linked from a social profile's bio that routes followers to multiple destinations.
- Social ROI
- The return on social media activity, weighing outcomes such as leads, sales, and saved time against the cost of producing and managing content.
- Dark social
- Sharing through private channels — DMs, messaging apps, email — where referrals can't be tracked by normal analytics.
- User-generated content (UGC)
- Content created by customers or fans — posts, photos, videos, reviews — rather than by the brand itself. Often reshared with permission to build trust and reach; obtaining usage rights and moderating what you display are the practical challenges.
- Share of voice
- Your brand's share of the total online conversation in your category, measured against competitors.
- Social listening
- Monitoring social channels and the wider web for mentions, topics, and sentiment relevant to your brand.