Getting ratioed

And other social media terms you may have heard recently

Jul 17, 2023

Happy 10th annual World Emoji Day! 🎉 In honour of this big day, Emojipedia has created some sample designs for new emoji candidates up for approval by Unicode this September. You might also want to check out their blog post on celebrity-emoji associations (can you guess who this is? 🤨).

In today’s newsletter:

🗣️ Say What?: Getting ratioed…and other social media terms you may have heard recently
❗️ Final Notice: GA4 is here
🍝 TikTok Trend: Girl Dinner

Look-ahead content calendar for July 17, 2023

Say what?

Getting ratioed. Reply guy. Shadowban.

Some of these social media terms have been floating around recently. So, I thought I would take a minute to explain what they actually mean in case you were wondering.

Note: If you’re looking for a more extensive list of terms, I highly recommend this glossary from Later.com.

Getting Ratioed

“Getting Ratioed” (sometimes spelled ratio’d) is when social media users try to outdo the likes on a post by either posting a ton of Twitter replies, or in the case of YouTube, more dislikes than likes. If this is happening to your account, it’s not good.

Real-life example: Check out the Bud Light Twitter account. Every one of their tweets are getting ratioed right now. It all started in spring, when their customers got upset after they engaged with trans advocate Dylan Mulvaney. And then the company angered everyone else by their complete incompetence and lack of support for Dylan Mulvaney when their base got upset (In case you need a backgrounder on what happened, here’s a great video from Pink News).

If your account is getting ratioed, it’s time for your crisis communications plan to kick in.

Reply Guys

I listened to a recent The Daily podcast by The New York Times about the new Threads app. Reporter Mike Isaac, talking about Twitter, mentioned the term “reply guys.” According to Dictionary.com: “A reply guy is a term for a man who frequently comments on tweets or other social media posts in an annoying, condescending, forward, or otherwise unsolicited manner–especially posts by women.”

Real-life example: Check out this Twitter thread started by a self-proclaimed “reply guy.” Anyone else notice how most of these profile pics are animated and not real-life photos? Hmm.

And speaking of reply guys, a few of them have been referring to actress and star of the new “Barbie” movie Margot Robbie as “mid” or a 7. There’s a great article in Glamour Magazine UK about how absolutely ridiculous this all is.

Shadowban

No platform admits to doing this, but you often hear creators talking about a shadowban. Essentially, a shadowban is when the algorithm on a platform partially blocks or restricts an account from appearing in Instagram searches, or on the For You Page for TikTok.

Why does it happen? It could mean that your content violated the platform’s community guidelines. Or perhaps your post was considered to be bullying or harassment, there was some type of copyright infringement, or you used a banned hashtag.

You likely won’t be informed of a shadowban, but you’ll definitely see a drop in views and engagement. You may also notice you can’t search for your content, or that your followers can’t see your posts.

To remove the ban, Hootsuite suggests taking a break from posting, deleting the last post before the shadowban, and checking your hashtags to see if any have been banned or restricted.

Are there any other social media terms you’ve heard recently that you’d add to this list?

❗️ FINAL NOTICE

GA4 is here

As if adding the Instagram app, Threads, to our lives wasn’t enough, many social media managers and marketers are also now trying to get used to using Google Analytics 4 (GA4). That’s because the Universal Analytics that many of us know and love will disappear after July 2023. Here’s a helpful article from The Social Media Examiner on Getting Started with GA4. There are a also a LOT of videos you can watch on the Google Analytics YouTube channel. Good luck, everyone!

ICYMI

Snapchat+ has 4 million subscribers one year after launch [Snapchat Blog]
Meta introduces real-time calling with avatars [Meta Blog]
TikTok announces the “What’s Next: Gaming Trend Report” [TikTok Blog]
Twitter starts paying…but only Elon Musk’s favourite creators [Mashable]

🍝 GIRL DINNER

The New York Times recently ran an article about a new TikTok trend called “Girl Dinner.” It’s usually made by one person, for the consumption of one person. And the videos featuring aesthetically pleasing charcuterie type snack plates of veggies, cheese, nuts, olives… you get the idea.

However, my algorithm is showing me a slightly different version of #GirlDinner — and I love it! It reminds me of dinners from university, where chips and dip or pasta and cheese are the focal point. Or, in my favourite video so far, a McCain “Deep’N Delicious” cake is the main entree (fellow Canadians — warm or right out of the freezer?). Or perhaps, you just want a nap for dinner. Anything is on the menu!