Top 10 Abbreviations Explained for New Social Media Users

Many experts recommend that businesses have a presence of some sort on social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook. Some larger firms choose to employ social media consultants but small or home business operators generally have to jump in and do it themselves. Like anything new, it takes a little practice to find your way around and even if you’ve been emailing and browsing for years the abbreviations commonly used on these sites may seem like a foreign language.

There are Acronym Dictionary’s available online that provide thousands of definitions but most users will only ever use a handful in day to day posts and tweets. Here is a very basic top 10 list:

1. LOL: Laugh out loud: something you or someone else said that you find funny
2. ROFL: Rolling on floor laughing or LMAO: Laugh my arse off; Something you or someone else said is really funny. There are countless variations of this Tip: if there is an F included somewhere, it doesn’t stand for fridge.
3. FTW: For the win, use in praise of something. eg, Belly Beyond FTW!
4. IMO: In my opinion or IMHO: in my honest/humble opinion
5. IYKWIM: If you know what I mean
6. OMG: Oh my god/goodness or OMFG
7. WTF: What the f***
8. BTW: By the way
9. RT or PRT: Retweet or please retweet
10. Also worthy of a mention is the Twitter hashtag #fail – it’s not an acronym but represents the writers opinion of failure about something or someone. “Latest Hanover deal #fail” or “#epicfail (a failure of epic proportions)

To gain the most benefit from sites like Twitter it’s important not to just talk about your own business but to engage in conversation with others so while you may think you are unlikely to use these abbreviations yourself, being able to decode acronyms and accurately gauge the tone of a conversation or comment, can be the difference between understanding and completely missing the point.