10 Social Media Acronyms You Need to Know
If there’s one place where acronyms are appropriate, it’s social media and here at Charli Says I love discovering new ones. The good news is the internet has evolved leaps and bounds from the days of LOL, OMG and ASL? Below are 10 social media acronyms you need to know if you have any hope of mastering the new era of internet slang.
ELI5
If you don’t know what ELI5 is, you probably haven’t spent enough time on social media (that could be a good thing or a bad thing). ELI5 stands for Explain Like I’m 5. Feel free to use it when you want a friendly, simplified and accessible explanation to a complex question or concept. By invoking ELI5, you are essentially asking to be talked to like a five-year old. Remember that.
B2B/B2C
The business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) acronyms have existed long before the age of social media, but have become even more important over the past ten years. That’s because they have a whole host of other acronyms associated with them, such as CPC, CPM, CTR, KPI, etc. I will save these for another article.
UX
UX stands for user experience and is common lingo in the business/IT domains. If you’re trying to optimize your audience’s interaction with your brand or content, UX will often come up during conversations.
AFAIK
As Far As I Know (AFAIK) is still one of the most popular acronyms on social media. If you spend any time on Twitter or message boards you are likely to see this one over and over again.
NSFW
Make no mistake, this acronym could be the most important on the list. That’s because it can prevent you from looking at something you shouldn’t see while at work. NSFW stands for Not Safe For Work. I think you can imagine the sorts of content (or images) that would be accompanied by this tag.
TBT
This is a bizarre one that all the kids seem to be enjoying…. yep I’m sounding old! It means Throwback Thursday. Every Thursday social media users experience nostalgia by “throwing” back to an old picture, TV show or song they enjoyed back when they were younger. TBT is actually a pretty big deal because it allows users to share past experiences or share their favourite pop culture momentum from the 90s. Every Thursday, #tbt dominates.
MT
If you frequent the Twitter-sphere, you’ve likely come across MT, which stands for Modified Tweet. A modified tweet is essentially a message you had to trim down to save space or change in some way. A modified tweet retains the same meaning of the original message, only with slightly different wording. This often happens when a user manually retweets a message, since they often lose a few characters in order to leave room for a comment and the username of the original poster.
SaaS
SaaS, or Software as a Service, might not be directly relevant to your needs or industry. But you should still know about it because chances are you use SaaS even without knowing it. SaaS essentially refers to cloud computing, which refers to the use of computing services and applications over the internet without having to store, manage or process data on your personal computer. Do you use Google docs? What about WebEX or online accounting software? If these tools are being hosted over the internet, they are probably SaaS. This is a common technical term that pops up on social media.
AMA
AMA, or Ask Me Anything, is one of the fastest growing acronyms on social media. It seems to have been made popular on entertainment and social news networking site Reddit, where users can prompt others to ask questions about any topic. A number of notable people have participated in AMA, including Bill Gates, Stephen Colbert and even US President Barack Obama. AMA has also made its way to other social media platforms.
TL;DR
TL;DR is another popular acronym that means Too Long; Didn’t Read. It pretty much applies everywhere except Twitter (at least, we hope nobody is using this on Twitter). TL;DR can often sound rude, but reminds us about the importance of being direct and to the point, especially on social media. If your posts don’t have these characteristics, don’t expect anyone to pay attention to what you have to say.
There you have it – 10 popular social media acronyms for everyday use. If you plan on leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media platform for your business, you might want to keep these in mind.
By reading through this list, you should at least begin to appreciate what kind of content people like to consume. Don’t let anything stop you from embracing TBT or even WCW (Woman Crush Wednesdays). Whatever your brand or audience, chances are there’s an acronym for that!
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