Look a word up, get the answer in the first line, and read the rest only if you need it. Every entry covers what the term means, how people actually use it, and where it behaves differently on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Threads, Facebook, and Pinterest. The longer reads are in the editorial library, and the free tools do the jobs the terms describe.
The six entries the rest of the glossary keeps linking back to.
All 55 terms in one place. Terms that start with "Social media" are listed twice, so the algorithm entry is under A as well as S.
The words that come up while you are still planning the work: what a content pillar is, what batching means, how the algorithm decides what to show, and what cross-posting does to a calendar.
The numbers in the monthly report and what each one is actually measuring. Engagement rate, reach, impressions, follower growth, KPIs, CAC, and the goals that hang off them.
Everything that happens inside the text box: the caption, the hashtags, the keyword you want to be found for, the 150 characters in the bio, and the link sitting under it.
What each kind of post is. Short-form and long-form video, carousels, vlogs, GRWMs, memes, GIFs, stickers, and the file formats the whole lot ships in.
How a post reaches somebody who does not follow you: the feed, the For You Page, what trending means on each platform, and what counts as viral once you look at the numbers.
The money side of social. Creators, influencers, KOLs, affiliate links, sponsored posts, boosted posts, and what a thought leader is supposed to be doing.
The half of the job that happens in the replies: the community itself, the person who runs it, DMs, CFBR, and asking the audience to make the content with you.
The shorthand that turns up in briefs, comments, and reports without anyone explaining it. Each one is also filed under its topic above.
The entries are written by Jared James and the team that builds Maeve, a scheduling platform for Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Threads, Facebook, and Pinterest. So a definition describes how the word gets used when you are the one running the accounts: what the metric means once it lands in a client report, what the feature does when you are trying to get a post out on a Friday afternoon.
Every entry has the same shape. One sentence at the top that answers the question, then the detail underneath: how the term is used, where the platforms disagree about it, the mistakes that come with it, and a link out to the free tool or the guide when there is one. Definitions get revised when a platform changes something that makes the old wording wrong, and each page carries the date it was last updated.
A definition tells you what engagement rate is. It does not work it out for you. There are 30 free tools for the jobs the terms describe: an engagement rate calculator, caption and hashtag generators, a UTM builder, an Instagram grid planner, and templates for a strategy, a calendar, an audit, and a report. None of them ask for an account.
The editorial library runs the other way. Long-form guides on the thinking behind the words, like planning a week of content, choosing the metrics that are worth reporting, and getting a post approved without a fifty-message email thread.
A list of the words social media marketing uses, with a plain definition for each one. This glossary covers 55 terms, from the metrics that end up in a monthly report to the acronyms people drop in comments, and every entry opens with a one-sentence answer before it goes into the detail.
Yes. There is no account, no email gate, and no download form. Open a term and read it.
The A to Z index lists all 55 terms in one place, so you can jump straight to the one you came for. The sections under it group the same terms by topic: strategy, metrics, captions and hashtags, content formats, feeds and discovery, creators and paid partnerships, and community. Searching the page in your browser works too.
Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw a post. Impressions is the total number of times it was displayed, counting repeat views by the same person. A post with 800 reach and 2,400 impressions was seen by 800 people, on average three times each.
For You Page, the feed TikTok opens on. Every account gets a different one, picked by a recommender system that watches what you finish, rewatch, like, share, comment on, follow, and skip. The same idea now drives the For You feeds on Instagram Reels, Threads, Facebook Reels, and Pinterest.
Commenting for better reach. Someone leaves a comment, sometimes literally those four letters, to push a post into more feeds. LinkedIn now down-weights the empty version and its policies discourage coordinated engagement, so the only version that does anything is a real one-sentence comment from a relevant person.
Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Threads, Facebook, and Pinterest. Where a term behaves differently on one platform, the entry says so instead of averaging it into something vague.
Jared James, Co-Founder, Maeve Social, and the team that builds Maeve Social. The definitions come out of running accounts and building the software that publishes to them, so they describe how a word is used in a working content calendar rather than how a textbook would put it.
They get revised when a platform changes something that makes the old wording wrong, which on Instagram and TikTok happens often. Every entry carries the date it was last updated at the top.
No. Nothing here is gated and none of it assumes a particular tool. Maeve comes up where it is the thing being described, like scheduling one post to eight platforms from a single calendar or sending it through client approval first.
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