This document discusses important terms for social media analysts to know across different social media platforms. It begins by explaining the importance of understanding analytics terms as social networks have improved their analytics offerings. It then provides definitions and explanations for 29 key terms used on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram. These terms include things like engagements, impressions, influencers, sentiment and various platform-specific metrics. The document aims to help social media analysts understand and communicate about performance consistently across networks.

1. (andthe people
whoworkwiththem)
29 Must-Know
Terms ForEvery
SocialMediaAnalyst

2. Social networks have improved their internal analytics offerings to the point where they are
unrecognizable even from a year or two ago. Can you imagine working with the old Facebook
Insights now that they provide a wealth of data about the health and status of your page?
Business demand drives much of this access to better social analytics. Paid advertising through
social networks is becoming a core part of any marketing campaign, and brands need data to
justify the spend. Access to better analytics arms marketers with the information needed to
measure ROI and allocate budgets.
Facebook, YouTube, and more recently, Twitter and LinkedIn have really beefed up their analytics
offerings. Younger social networks such as Instagram and Pinterest are still navigating best practices
for businesses to leverage their platforms and as a result, are still playing catch-up in this area.
With your brand being active across so many social networks, it’s important for you to remain up
to speed on the myriad of industry terms used for each platform. These terms are often different
words that can essentially mean the same thing but are important to know so that your boss or
client understands what you’re talking about in your reports!
As a side note, this report focuses on social media analytics terms, so we haven’t included
many well-known marketing analytics terms like Click Through Rate, Cost Per Action, Return On
Investment, etc. in this guide.
Introduction

3. Contents
Unmetric is an online platform that leverages human and algorithmic
intelligence to provide enterprises with data and insights into how
well their social media content and campaigns perform compared to
industry competitors.
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Cross-channel terms
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Pinterest/Instagram
Thank you

4. Each social network employs its own terms to describe very similar metrics.
These common terms are relevant for most or all of the social networks.
Cross-Channel Terminology
1. Benchmarks – Used to help a brand validate its social media performance (particularly for
vanity metrics) and to justify social media budgets. Brands should benchmark against direct
competitors or a larger peer group rather than non-relevant brands or sectors. Brands should
also benchmark against their own previous efforts.
04
Benchmarks can be done against your own performance or use a third party analytics
platform to benchmark against your wider sector.
Social networks show the engagements in their analytics platforms but often the way
engagement is calculated differs from network to network. Use a third party analytics
platform to get a standardized engagement score on competitor pages.
In the analytics platforms of the various social networks.
Most social networks will show you the number of people that have interacted with your
content in their analytics platforms – some networks refer to interactions as engagements.
2. Engagements – From a metrics perspective, Engagements is the number of people that have
interacted with a piece of content posted on a social media channel. Engagements are often
thought of as the objective of social media, but like any form of mass communication, achieving
business objectives is now becoming the primary goal.
3. Impressions – Similar to mass media terminology,social media impressions is the number
of people that have had a piece of brand content show up in their newsfeed across various
social networks.An impression should not be referred to as a definite view or meaningful
engagement, as people often overlook brand content.
Where to
find it
4. Interactions – A subset of Engagements, an interaction is anything a user does with a piece
of brand content on social media. Interactions can be a Video View, Like, Favorite, Comment,
Retweet or Share. Facebook determines Engagement as a summation of the interactions (Likes,
Comments,Shares) on a piece of content.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

5. 05
Fans
Likes
Comments
Shares
Followers
Favorites
Replies
Retweets
Followers
Likes
Comments
Repins
Subscribers
Views
Likes
Comments
Followers
Likes
Comments
Followers
Likes
Comments
Shares
5. Targeting – The method by which a brand reaches its target market on a social network.Some
social networks have more advanced targeting than others, but standard targeting options
include: location (down to the neighbourhood in some cases), age, and gender.Some social
networks will let you target people by the company they work for, their job role, designation
and interests.
In the advertising platforms of the various social networks but also when you post an
update on Facebook you can select the target audience for the post.
6. Vanity Metrics – So defined because without context, they don’t help a brand with its business
objectives or measure ROI. However,vanity metrics are easy to grasp and provide good
headlines.The best way to use vanity metrics is in conjunction with benchmarks or trend
analysis. Examples of vanity metrics include:
“A maniacal focus on likes and shares,
for example, would lead a brand to
over-index on pictures of puppies.
But how does that help you achieve
your brand’s objectives? People often
talk about signal versus noise, and we
believe that’s the right way to think
about it.”
Carrie Van Es
Vice President at M Booth.
Read the full interview here.
Where to
find it

6. Facebook
7. Average Reply Time (ART) – The average amount of time between when a user first posts a
question on a brand’s Facebook wall and when the brand actually replies for the first time.ART
doesn’t take into account the resolution of a problem but does help a brand understand and
plan its customer service resource allocation.
06
Facebook has more metrics than most other social networks in its analytics dashboard,
but it doesn’t give you everything you need to know to plan your social media strategy.
Facebook does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics
platform which uses multiple data points to calculate this metric.
Facebook does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics
platform which uses multipe data points to calculate this metric.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
8. Response Rate – Is calculated by examining the number of questions/comments being posted
on a brand’s Facebook wall and then seeing how many replies those questions and mentions
received.This is useful for determining social media customer service resource allocation.

7. 07
10. Monthly Active Users / Daily Active Users – Usually abbreviated to MAU & DAU respectively,
these terms inform a brand how many users a have used a Facebook app.The DAU fluctuates
daily, while the MAU is a 30-day moving average of the number of Daily Active Users. Combined
with relevant benchmarks, a brand can understand how effective a Facebook app investment
has been.
Facebook does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics
platform to get this metric.
Under the Facebook Insights tab and also below each brand post.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
11. Reach – The number of people that have been exposed to a piece of brand content on their
newsfeeds (this doesn’t mean the audience necessarily noticed or interacted with the content
in a meaningful way).As Facebook has restricted the organic reach to fans, brands now need to
pay to achieve significant reach for their content -- although organic user sharing of content can
drastically increase reach.
“Paid Media is a critical piece
to success in Social Media and
shouldn’t be treated as a nice-to-
have but rather a mandatory for a
presence on specific channels.”
Jeff Melton
SVP, Global Technology and
Platforms at MSLGROUP
Read the full interview here.
When logged in as the page admin and posting an update, a button is available to Boost the
post, it’s also available on content that was previously posted.
Where to
find it
9. Boosting – Facebook encourages brands to think of it as a mass media platform.Just as with
mass media advertising, brands must pay Facebook for their post to reach the masses and this
process is called Boosting.

8. Twitter
12. Average Reply Time (ART) – The average amount of time between when a user first tweets at
a brand on Twitter and when the brand actually replies for the first time.ART doesn’t take into
account the resolution of a problem but does help a brand understand and plan its customer
service resource allocation.
08
The social network on which you can take the pulse of your community and is also
quickly becoming the platform of choice for brands to offer customer service.
Twitter does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics platform
which takes separate data points to calculate this metric.
Twitter does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics platform
which takes separate data points to calculate this metric.
13. Response Rate – Is calculated by examining the number of @-mentions on Twitter, and then
seeing how many replies those questions and mentions received. Response rate is useful for
determining social media customer service resource allocation.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

9. 09
14. Influencers – Thanks to the democratization of social media, there are individuals that have
gained recognition as an authority in a particular field or popularity with the general public.
Previously, influencers may have been celebrities or sports stars, but now, anyone with a loyal
following can be an influencer. Brands can amplify their message or react to a PR crisis by
understanding and interacting with key influencers.
Twitter does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics platform
which takes separate data points to calculate this metric.
Twitter does not provide this data directly,you need to use a third party analytics platform
which takes separate data points to calculate this metric.
In the Twitter Advertising dashboard.
15. Sentiment – This indicates whether the buzz about a brand is positive or negative and
picks up recurring topics from the general public related to a brand’s products and services.
Sentiment is a metric that is best measured over time to identify trends rather than looking at
a snapshot on a particular day.
16. Twitter Cards – Like a promoted tweet but with more functionality, there are many varieties
of Twitter Cards that brands can use.Audience information can be collected with the click of a
button making them quite useful for lead generation.
“If anything I believe that too many
metrics are available today. I look
forward to a point in time when it’s
less about metrics and more about
meaning”
Zaheer Nooruddin
VP of Digital & Social Media at
Waggener Edstrom APAC.
Read the full interview here.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

10. YouTube
17. Estimated Minutes Watched – The cumulative number of minutes watched by everyone that
has viewed a YouTube video.This is more of a vanity metric.
10
Not just for home videos and cat videos,YouTube is quickly growing up and now
provides many metrics that would be familiar to anyone from the TV advertising
industry but with more depth, accuracy and insight.
In the YouTube Analytics dashboard.
In the YouTube Analytics dashboard.
18. Audience Retention – Few viewers manage to get all the way through a video.This metric tells
brands the average duration a visitor viewed their video, or the percentage of the video that the
average person watches – useful for identifying edits the video might need.A view is counted
the moment a person begins to play a video.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

11. 11
20. Pre-roll Campaigns – These are ads that play before a video starts and are charged on a CPM
(Cost Per Thousand– how much it costs for 1,000 views) basis. By default,viewers can skip an ad
after 5 seconds, but YouTube allows brands to pay more to disable the skip button.
In the YouTube Advertising dashboard (you will need an AdWords account).
In the YouTube Analytics dashboard.
21. Annotations – These are the messages overlaid on YouTube videos, and can be used to promote
different videos or link out to other websites.They are very useful for increasing engagement or
getting people to interact with a video.
“You never know what you might learn
[when you look at other sectors] - a
new platform, a new way of looking at
a platform, a new concept, or just the
way social media marketing is heading!
For instance, a lot of Coke’s ‘feel good’
videos can extend to many categories,
not just soft drinks!”
Deepak Gopalakrishnan
Planning Director at OgilvyOne
Worldwide.
Read the full interview here.
In third party analytics platforms that take multiple data points to create new metrics.
19. Average Video Length – Brands use this metric to find out how long the average video is for a
particular channel or the sector. This information can be combined with Audience Retention
metrics to determine a brand’s optimal video length.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

12. LinkedIn
22. Acquired Followers – These are followers a brand has acquired through paid promotion such
as a sponsored post. Brands can identify how paid efforts help them to build and engage with a
LinkedIn community.
12
Dismissed by many in the early days, LinkedIn has been ramping up its
advertising offerings and has emerged as a strong platform to reach decision
makers especially with its new Showcase pages.
In the LinkedIn Analytics dashboard.
In the LinkedIn Analytics dashboard.
23. Audience – LinkedIn will indicate if content was sent to all followers, which is true for organic
posts, or targeted to select people, which is the case for sponsored updates.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

13. 13
24. Reach – LinkedIn refers to content impressions as Reach. It is a total of the number of times a
piece of brand content was served up in the newsfeeds of LinkedIn users.A sub-metric of this
is Unique Reach, which is the exact number of newsfeeds the content was published on.This is
different, as a user might refresh the newsfeed several times and increase the reach metric with
each refresh.
In the LinkedIn Analytics dashboard.
In the LinkedIn Analytics dashboard.
This information is not available in the LinkedIn analytics dashboard.You will need to use a
third party analytics platform that collects this data.
25. Engagement – Along with the number of interactions (the number of people who have liked,
commented or shared the content), LinkedIn determines Engagement as a percentage of
impressions against the total number interactions and clicks.
26. Hiring Updates – This is a useful metric for brands to measure the competition, gain insights into
the HR needs of the company and potential new products or services based on hiring patterns.
“There isn’t a time on a social media
cycle that you don’t need the data
or you need it more. Data is used
to predict, plan, optimize, evaluate
and then again use the data in
order to plan the next one.”
Stavros Kontakstis
Partner and Strategy Director at
Avakon+.
Read the full interview here.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

14. Pinterest & Instagram
Both of these platforms are in the nascent stages of offering analytics solutions
to brands and focus primarily on vanity metrics that are useful for benchmarking
against competitors but less so on helping with business objectives.
27. Hashtags – Used on both Pinterest & Instagram, hashtags are an indication of an ongoing
campaign but also allows a brand to tag similar content. Hashtags don’t necessarily trend in the
way they do on Twitter.
14
Pinterest & Instagram do not provide this data directly, Use a third party analytics
platform that gathers this data.
Use a third party analytics platform that gathers this data.
28. Pin / Re-pin Ratio – This is very useful for brands to understand how well a board has
been received.The higher the ratio, the more re-pins there have been, which increases the
brand’s visibility.
Where to
find it
Where to
find it

15. 15
Both their advertising platforms are being beta tested at the moment and are
invite only, once these advertising platforms open up to the general public, expect
to see a rise in the number of metrics available in these platforms.
29. Pin Source – This is the place where the pin originated (either another website or was
uploaded on Pinterest). Brands can use this metric to understand how competitors are
generating their content.
Use a third party analytics platform that gathers this data.
“We don’t simply optimize social
campaigns; we leverage social data
to optimize customer experiences
across channels at each stage of
the journey.”
Randi Rosenfeld
Social Media Director at MRM//
McCann.
Read the full interview here.
Where to
find it

16. Thank You
Thanks for downloading and reading these 29 Must-Know Terms For
Every Social Media Analyst (and the people who work with them).
Feel free to share this PDF with your colleagues and clients.
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