StartellGlossary
Plain-language definitions of the terms you will hear when you work with brands.
- Affiliate link
- A tracked link that pays you a commission when someone buys through it.
- Brief
- The document in which a brand explains what a campaign needs: goals, message, deliverables and dates.
- Call to action (CTA)
- The thing you ask viewers to do: follow, comment, save, click.
- Collab post
- A post shared between two accounts so that it appears on both profiles.
- Content calendar
- A plan of what you will post and when.
- Content pillar
- A theme you return to regularly, so your audience knows what to expect from you.
- CPA
- Cost per action: what a brand pays for each sale, sign-up or other result.
- CPM
- Cost per thousand impressions. A way brands compare the price of reaching an audience across channels.
- Creator economy
- The market of people who earn money from creating content and the companies that serve them.
- Deliverables
- The exact content you agreed to produce in a deal, such as one reel and three stories.
- Engagement rate
- The share of your audience that interacts with a post: usually likes, comments, saves and shares divided by followers or by reach, times 100.
- Exclusivity
- A clause that stops you working with the brand's competitors for a set period. It limits your income, so it should be priced.
- Hook
- The first sentence or second of a video, whose only job is to make the viewer stay for the next one.
- Impressions
- The total number of times a post was shown, including repeat views by the same person.
- Macro-influencer
- A creator with a large audience, typically hundreds of thousands of followers or more, used mainly for broad awareness.
- Media kit
- A one- or two-page summary of who you are: audience, numbers, past work and rates. Brands ask for it before a deal.
- Micro-influencer
- A creator with a smaller, tighter audience, often between a few thousand and around a hundred thousand followers. Brands use them for niche, trusted recommendations.
- Niche
- A specific area you focus on, such as home fitness for new parents. A narrower niche is easier to become known for.
- Organic reach
- Reach you get without paying for promotion.
- Reach
- The number of different accounts that saw a post at least once.
- Retention
- How much of a video people actually watch. High retention usually means a strong hook and tight pacing.
- UGC (user-generated content)
- Content made by a creator or customer that a brand uses in its own channels or ads. UGC creators are paid for the content itself, not for posting it on their own page.
- Usage rights
- Permission for a brand to reuse your content, for example in paid ads. The longer and wider the use, the more it should cost.
- Whitelisting (partnership ads)
- When a brand runs ads through your account handle, so the ad appears to come from you.