Continuing our series of blogs that get to the heart of social media jargon, Part 2 covers D to F.
If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, you can find it here.
Default: The standard or most typical method for different types of communication – the rule, rather than the exception. For example, newsletters are generally sent by e-mail, Twitter is the home of short links, and image posts with no written content can usually be found on Tumblr.
Digging: On the social news website Digg, ‘digging’ an article means voting it up – much in the same way you’d use a shovel in the real world to turf up a gem. Conversely, voting a less popular article down is known as ‘burying’. Facebook uses a similar system, making posts with lots of likes and comments more visible.
Dooced: To be ‘dooced’ is to be fired, ostracised or otherwise punished for something you’ve posted on social media that someone you know then reads. There are too many recent examples of this to list, as several disgruntled employees and family members have taken to their blogs or Facebook accounts with an ill-advised tirade. Our advice: keep it to yourself.
Drift: When a discussion on social media veers off on a tangent, away from the original topic. A single word is often all that’s needed to send a conversation off course, and can be a real obstacle for companies trying to engage with their consumers online – yet drift is natural in spoken dialogue, and can make communications sound more authentic.
Egosurfing: Searching for your own name, pseudonym or screen name on a search engine to see what pops up, and setting up instant notifications for new results and images. Even if you think egosurfing is only for the vain and paranoid, checking what information about you is available online could be a real eye-opener.
Escribitionist: Describes bloggers who only write about themselves, rather than on a subject that they like, or those who keep their diary online. This is especially applicable to celebrities, and has gained more negative connotations in recent years through oversharing and the saturation of the web with personal blogs.
Facilitator: Anyone who sets up or mediates an online discussion, or who builds relationships through social media. It’s important to be genuine, friendly, and in most cases neutral, although facilitating for a brand means representing them in the best possible light.
Feed: A real-time list of social media posts from people and organisations that you follow. This one might not be the most complex word on our list, but it’s surprising how many people don’t use the term frequently: as feeds are mostly found on the ‘homepage’ of social networking sites, that’s the description they get.
Folksonomy: The classification of user-generated tags and keywords. Rather than listing your content by how you’ve described it, a folksonomy arranges it according to how your readers categorised it. This collaborative method of tagging can be imprecise, and make it harder for others to find your posts, but it encourages engagement with the content.
We’ll be covering G to I very soon, so check back for the next instalment. If there are any words or phrases you’d like us to cover specifically, drop us a note via our Contact Us page or send a tweet to @strattoncraig – make sure you’re quick, as our Part 3 is on the way!
The Stratton Craig social media jargon buster: Part Two (D to F)
