Cross-posting is the strategy of posting the same social media content across multiple channels.

Social media managers use cross-posting to help them save time and resources, rather than funneling energy into creating new content for each channel.

To “creep” is essentially to stalk a person or a brand on social media, especially without engaging with any of their posts.

Despite the negative word, it’s not always a negative thing. Creeping can also be a form of online research, for instance, when screening potential new employees.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that provides licenses and other legal tools to allow photographers and other content creators to share their work.

There are more than 1.6 billion works in the Commons, which can be shared in various ways. The six levels of Creative Commons licenses restrict how an image or other content can be used, and whether attribution is required.

Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is an advertising metric that measures the cost of showing an ad one thousand times. It’s often used to compare the efficiency of different ad campaigns.

CPM helps social media managers determine the cost of reaching a large audience with their ads.

(Psst: CPM actually stands for “cost per mille,” with “mille” meaning one thousand in Latin.)

Cost per click (CPC) is a metric for how much each click costs in a pay-per-click advertising campaign.

Cost-per-click and pay-per-click are sometimes used interchangeably, but they’re actually two sides of the same coin. Pay-per-click is the type of ad model, and cost-per-click is the fee per click.

A conversion occurs when a social media user or visitor to your website takes a specific, desired action. Making a purchase is often the desired conversion, but it is not the only one. Other conversion examples include lead-generation actions like opting into a newsletter, registering for a webinar, or downloading a whitepaper.

Content marketing is the practice of attracting and retaining customers through the creation and distribution of original, valuable content such as videos, whitepapers, guides, and infographics.

Consistently providing valuable content gives followers a reason to stay tuned to your social channels while building rapport and establishing your industry expertise.

A connection is someone you or your brand is connected with on social media.

LinkedIn specifically uses the term “connections” to refer to professional social relationships—LinkedIn connections are the equivalent of Facebook friends.

Competitive intelligence in social media is the process of gathering and analyzing data about competitors’ strategies, audience engagement, and industry trends to refine your own marketing approach.

This includes monitoring competitors’ content performance, ad strategies, audience sentiment, and emerging trends to gain a competitive edge.

A comment is a form of engagement in which a user replies to your social media post.

Comments can offer praise, ask a question, express disagreement, and otherwise contribute to the online conversation about your social content. Comments can include text, hashtags, @ mentions, and emojis.

A large number of comments shows that your post is engaging and may boost its position in the newsfeed based on a social network’s algorithm.

Clickbait is web content with a misleading or sensationalist headline designed to get readers to click through to the full story, which is generally a disappointment. Clickbait’s goal is usually to generate pageviews and advertising revenue. All social networks have taken a stance against clickbait, and algorithms are designed not to surface clickbait posts. In other words, it’s a practice to avoid.

A check-in is a way of location tagging a social media post to indicate where the user is, or where the content in the post was created.

It’s a way of showing followers that you have physically visited a geographical location or event. It can be particularly useful to check in at large, high-profile events, since it can help people connect in the real world while also providing credibility and demonstrating that you’re an insider in your industry.

A chat is an online conversation with one or more people. Whether one-on-one or in a group, chats are usually private and text-based, although they may incorporate GIFS, photos, and even audio recordings. Common chat platforms include WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

“Chat” can also be used to mean a moderated public conversation on social media, organized around a hashtag. Twitter chats, like the monthly #HootChat, are a prime example.

Channel art, also known as channel header image or YouTube banner, is a large banner-style graphic that’s placed at the top of a YouTube channel page.

Typically, the channel art corresponds with the style and aesthetic of the channel and brand to help communicate the channel’s personality.

A carousel is a social media post with multiple photos and/or videos, especially popular on Instagram. Followers can swipe through the images.

Carousels are sometimes referred to as galleries or photo dumps.

A statement that’s factually incorrect or a lie. Often used as a phrase “no cap” (all facts) or “all cap” (all lies).