We’re fast approaching the end of the alphabet in our social media jargon-busting series. This week, our regular instalment will take on S, T and U.
To see all of the previous posts in this series, follow the links below:
Part One (A-C)
Part Two (D-F)
Part Three (G-I)
Part Four (J-L)
Part Five (M-O)
Part Six (P-R)
Sentiment: The ratio of positive, negative and neutral comments about your brand or product on social media. This was illustrated to bright and beautiful effect during the Olympics, when the London Eye was lit according to Twitter reactions to the Games each day. It’s sometimes difficult to accurately measure sentiment, as “I just LOVE this brand!” could be genuine appreciation or an attempt at sarcasm.
Smartmob: Any group that uses their social media connections to act more effectively. By sharing information and connecting socially, smartmobs behave in an efficient and cohesive way – the complete opposite of a traditional mob. They also have more of a constructive purpose than a flashmob, choosing to organise sit-ins or protests rather than spontaneously break into dance.
SOB: A ‘Successful and Outstanding Blogger’, rather than the insult this acronym is generally used for. Bloggers are reclaiming these three letters as something to be proud of, using it to reward other posters for their content. Becoming an SOB can lead to increased exposure and status in the blog community, eventually making said blogger an even bigger SOB – and so on.
Sock puppet: A fake online profile, used to either boost or discredit someone else’s reputation. Recent news reports of Facebook ‘likes’, fake reviews on Amazon and Twitter followers being purchased in bulk have drawn attention to the issue of sock puppetry online.
Tag cloud: Visual representation of all of the tags used on a blog, and which ones are the most popular. Tags that are used more frequently are shown in a larger font, proportional to their use. It’s an easy way to find the most popular topics on a blog, with the one downside of more frequent themes seeming to ‘squash’ and hide the others.
Thumbtribe: People who have impressive skill with their thumbs through hours of texting, gaming and surfing the Internet on their phones. Taken from the Japanese word ‘oyayubizoku’ (literally ‘the thumb clan’), a group of avid phone users who read lengthy novels on their screens, and can text at lightning speed as a result of so much keypad use.
Tweeple: The people of Twitter. A somewhat obvious portmanteau, and an example of the recent trend for putting the prefix ‘tw-‘ before anything related to Twitter. Twurvey, twaffic, twhiners and even twerminology are all part of the site’s lexicon, making Tweeple sound disturbingly like the Elmer Fudds of the digital age.
UGC: Short for ‘user-generated content’, the holy grail for many brands and bloggers. In a lot of cases, if your audience can’t interact with your content then they won’t bother hanging around. UGC comes in the form of blog comments and product reviews, visuals and audio created around a brand, and informative wikis. Wikipedia has been leading the way as a site almost entirely composed of UGC, although moderation has been implemented to try and improve the credibility of content.
Unconference: A conference that’s created, scheduled and eventually run by those actually attending it. There are some who prefer unconferencing because it actively involves everyone in the discussions, rather than leaving the audience to just sit and absorb PowerPoint presentations.
Next week, we’ll be up to our eighth instalment, which will unusually cover just two letters -V and W – instead of the usual three. Check back next week to see our picks, or contact us through the website or on Twitter @strattoncraig to make some suggestions.
The Stratton Craig social media jargon buster: Part Seven (S to U)
