Digital marketing, like every industry, has its own unique language. A collection of words, phrases and abbreviations that seem to confuse more people than they help. And as an expert in <insert your industry here>, how can you be expected to memorize every digital marketing term on top of your industry’s language? Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Much like how we at Bailey Creative aim to educate and guide our clients throughout their digital marketing journey, this blog is here to serve as your sidekick when talking digital marketing. Bookmark it and check back often as we’ll be continually updating this article each month.

If you have a digital marketing term you need explained ASAP, or have a question related to your brand’s digital marketing, give us a call or send us an email and we will be sure to get back to you right away with an answer.

Digital Marketing

First things first, let’s start by defining Digital Marketing. Simply put, digital marketing is the overarching term used to refer to all marketing that makes use of digital technology. This can include email campaigns, SEO, online banner ads, social media ads, YouTube ads and more! If it uses digital technology to deliver a marketing message, it’s digital marketing.

Social Media

Next up, is social media. These are the platforms many brands and people, alike, use to connect. Obvious platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter most likely come to mind first when you hear the words “social media”, but social media also includes YouTube, Pinterest, Vimeo, Reddit, SnapChat and more.

Search Engine Optimization

This is our bread and butter. Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing keywords and website content to ensure your website appears as high on a list of search engine results as possible. Although it may sound like an easy task, it is in itself an art and takes a lot of training to master.

Search Engine Marketing

This is where things may start to get a bit foggy. Unlike Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing is the process of optimizing your website using paid options to ensure it appears at the top of the search engine results. These results can often be spotted by their “ad” or “promoted” tags typically present with the result and can refer to general search, map searches and more.

Adwords

Adwords is Google’s online advertising network and is mandatory if you wish to run an ad on Google or any of its partner websites. Many people don’t know that Adwords is responsible for the ads on YouTube and many other popular sites owned by Google. Adwords offers an endless number of objectives, campaign types and ad formats to help brands of all sizes achieve their digital marketing goals.

Hashtag

Primarily used on social media platforms, the “#” icon, is used to help sort content and give users quick access to the content they want. Users can attach one or many hashtags to their social media posts in hopes of having it discovered by people who may not otherwise see it. Hashtags are also used to join social media conversations and can also be found in traditional advertising too.

We hope these definitions have helped clarify the wonderful world of digital marketing. And don’t forget to check back regularly for new terms and definitions.