What does hashtag mean? What is ‘clickthrough rate’? In our latest blog, we explain some of the post popular social media and web lingo in very simple terminology. (updated 2024)
Over the past few years, social media has created its own language and much like the urban dictionary, we think there needs to be one for social media.
Let’s look at some of the most popular social media terms and what they mean.
What does Hashtag mean?
We start off easy here. Hashtag is one of the most used words in social media history. The hashtag is a word, or a group of words proceeded by the hashtag symbol: #. It started off on Twitter, but is now used frequently across all social media channels.
Hashtags are commonly used when an organisation or individual wants to promote themselves to a specific target audience. For example, an interior design company is most likely to use #interiordesign to ensure they get their products/ services out to the appropriate audience. In 2024 some platforms such as Facebook don’t take hashtags into account any more and LinkedIn now uses AI to read posts and decide what the context is based on content, instead of hashtags. Instagram is where hashtags used to make a big difference and are still worth including. That said, the Instagram algorithm is leaning towards keywords more so it’s possibly only a matter of time before hashtags become defunct on there too.
What is a Clickthrough Rate?
The click through rate is a social media metric used to depict the number of visitors who have clicked through to a web page divided by the number of impressions a post receives.
This is gives a strong indication of how many people have come to a page – you can also set this so that you can see a clickthrough rate within a particular time. It is a good idea to use this when you post a blog or shared something on social media to monitor what is working and what isn’t.
To find out your clickthrough rate, divide the number of people who clicked the call to action, by the number of people who saw your post, and multiply that by 100 for a percentage. For example, a LinkedIn post that has a link to a blog – 5 people clicked the link and the post had 297 impressions: 5 divided by 297 is 0.017 (rounded up), multiplied by 100 is a clickthrough rate of 1.7%.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is similar to outsourcing. This term refers to obtaining or sharing information/ ideas. This can be done in a number of ways:
- Using the ‘share’ button on most website pages for users to share a blog post on your social media platforms.
- Copying a link into your social media post to share information.
- Referencing a product or article within your own website content, by using links to connect your audiences to the relevant website.
Engagement rate
An engagement rate is extremely simple to explain. It is the metric used to measure social media activity. For example, it measures the likes, shares and comments a piece of content receives. Read our blog on other social media metrics including reach vs impressions.
To work out an engagement rate, divide the total number of interactions by the total number of followers you have, then multiple that by 100 to get a percentage. For example, a post that has 1,510 likes, 1,625 comments, and 2 shares (so 3,137 interactions altogether), divided by 176,000 followers, is 0.018 (rounding up), and multiplied by 100, is an engagement rate of 1.8%
Different platforms put more emphasis on different types of metrics to determine success and these can be fairly changeable. It can range from the number of video views to how many shares you get. Identifying the ideal metric for each social platform for your business, will help you with creating content that encourages engagements.
GIF
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format – in social media, GIFs are small animations and video footage. A GIF is commonly used to represent a feeling or action. How do you pronounce GIF? It’s a hard ‘G’ like for ‘Graphics’. It’s not pronounced JIF because we don’t say ‘jraphics’. Click here to see more GIF examples. We particularly like cats and keyboards…
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HTML
This may be an acronym you have never even thought to look at the meaning of, but it stands for: Hyper Text Markup Language.
This is a programming language for web pages. Most website developers will use this to manipulate a website to make it do what they ask it to. HTML provides content and structure to a web page.
You probably didn’t know that HTML has developed over time and much like your mobile phone operating system it has now progressed onto HTML version five.
Meme
Much like a GIF a meme is used to represent a thought, feeling or action a person may have. Meme’s are usually relatable and humorous to draw attention to their target audiences.
For example in recent years the ‘keep calm and carry on’ phrase was used frequently on memes with relevant pictures in the background.
So now you know your hashtag from your meme. If you need further advice on social media terminology, get in touch with our social media management team by clicking the link and filling in the form.
