Socraft: Essential Names For Common Social Media Practices
Needledicking: Making direct contact with a person of higher online social standing within a given community with no fixed intentions or propositions - mainly (merely) to say what's up or indicate approval of "what they are doing" - under the impression that said action may result in unforeseen future benefit. Eg: “Biches are needledicking my…
Socraft: The discipline and understanding of leveraging social networks in order to achieve exposure / recognition / power / interaction. E.g.: “Adam has been into socraft ever since he got a Twitter in 1996.”
Getting Gills: Establishing a social presence. E.g.: “Yo did you see Sheen last month? Dude got gills quick.”
Bubbling: Practice of placing extreme limits on interaction with more than a few people. E.g.: “I’ve been thinking about bubbling but I’m trying to promote an APP this month so I might wait on it.”
Swimming: Consistent, committed brand maintenance via social media. E.g.: “Ogilvy has really been swimming hard this week” [or alternately] “I can’t keep swimming with this fucking poetry book, I need a new meme.”
Sinking: See above. E.g.: “Look for some sinking to occur in the retail + social media sector post-holidays.”
Soaping: Formal brand social media broadcast interactions. E.g.: “Thank you for following! Please check out (tinyurl) for updates on our / my (reason for existence) [via DM]”.
Souping: Casual / informal social media / web use by an organization or person. E.g.:
“They’re so soupy at (company name) I’ll bet they have a full timer on 4chan.”
Open Pit Twitter Mining: The practice of following and then unfollowing a large number of people (also: “shrimping”). E.g.: “Did y’all get followed by Iron and Wine? I wonder if he’s personally doing the shrimping or if it’s an intern.”
Open Pit: A Twitter account temporarily engorged with follows (also: “shrimp net”). E.g.: “Did you see Columbia sportswear today? That shit is an open pit… embarrassing for their CMO.”
Copiapo: An over-extended Twitter user. An account permanently engorged with follows to such an extent as to make it non-functioning for all purposes save “search” and “@reply.” E.g.: “I was one of Carles’s first follows and thought he saw something special in me… it broke my heart watching his profile turn into copiapo.”
Hiking: Refers to periods of decreased socraft. These periods predominately occur between bouts of intense interactivity during which most often the user has an achievement or thing to promote. Not to be confused with “sinking.” E.g.: “Remember when Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes went hiking for like six months in 2010? His old Twitter was better, too.”
Wilderness: Obviously unused social media presence. E.g.: “Ok so Overstock.com’s Twitter is total wilderness duh.”
Bathhouse: The early phase of an established small to medium sized business’s social media presence: a time during which it is maintained mostly (and infrequently) by older white businessmen. E.g.: “I was following Applebees a while ago when it was still a total bathhouse.”
Going Turbo: Frenetic, possessed, “zombie-like” (sic) promotional interaction. E.g.: “Glasslands says that if we want to play there we need to bring a minimum of 35 people… we’ve either got to pull out or go turbo.”
Slurptime: The period upon joining a new IRL community during which it will appear appropriate to add new online contacts. Alternatively: the time during which a new social media platform’s novelty facilitates IRL contacts. E.g.: “When I moved to Brooklyn things were pretty mellow online. I mean slurptime had already ended, with work and with the band.”
Slurping: Easily gaining new social contacts by leveraging IRL events or credentials. E.g.: “Hump has been slurping on his movie i guess… mad hits breh…”
Going HAM: See “Going Turbo” (above). E.g.: “When the mixtape dropped I went HAM and Twitter mined for four hours straight.”
Going Zany: Using intoxication as a means or excuse to “loosen up” with one’s presence. E.g.: “I love it when young celebs go zany and piss off their management.”
Getting Skinny: Being overly cautious and avoiding all non-beneficial / self-promoting social media activity. E.g.: “Zachary German is always getting skinny with his podcast shit but I guess it works for him so whatevs.”
Turbo-HAM: A period of complete immersion in one’s brand. Temporary post-corporeality. E.g.: “Bro I was just thinking… what if Judith Butler went turbo-HAM. She could really change shit u kno?”
Fatting: Getting huge and adding too many bots who are into the band Muse. E.g.: “To anticipate the launch of their new soap, Dove Care Products has been fatting.”
Going Liquid: When a company finally agrees to float their social presence in an open-ish forum. E.g.: “It’s so great that a lot of small brewing companies have been going liquid with Twitter. Fits their brands well, I feel.”
Going Solid: When a company minimizes their media presence to ‘just a really clean website with a land line number.’ E.g.: ”Many fashion labels are going solid this season…”
Catch the Limit: When an account stops taking on new followers to preserve a desired follow ratio (also, “Staying Creamy”). E.g.: “When I finally catch the limit I’m gonna only follow people who are more famous than me, or who I drink with.”
Sauron: Someone from another region who adds you on all social networks in an uncomfortably short period of time. E.g.: “This German guy I met in Berlin on vacation gave me the sauron when I got back to Brooklyn. So uncomfortable.”
Full Eyes: Adding someone on a bunch of different social sites. E.g.: “The cute boy from accounting gave me full eyes last night. I’m so stunned.”
Needledicking: Making direct contact with a person of higher online social standing within a given community with no fixed intentions or propositions – mainly (merely) to say what’s up or indicate approval of “what they are doing” – under the impression that said action may result in unforeseen future benefit. E.g.: “Biches are needledicking my fake Bill Gates account…”
Hammerfucking: Creating and using over three times in under five minutes a hash tag which fails to catch on with any of your ~32 followers or the several @mentions therein contained. E.g.: “Lol do you remember when William Gibson was hammerfucking last night? #drunk…”
Gamer: Someone who appears menacingly concerned with social media statistics in a way that seems to dampen the growth of their brand. E.g.: “I’m working on this project with a big company and we need to get a gamer on board. Our analytics team needs help.”
Terminator: Radically unsentimental Twitter miner (also: “terminator mode”), differentiated from gamer in that the terminator seems motivated by a stronger sense of an end game, thus behaves with more confidence, more sure of the “substance” of their brand. E.g.: “Yeah I’m in terminator mode this month. I followed ten thousand people with mommy blogger hashtags and then dumped them the next day.”
Choicer: Someone overwhelmingly negative in tone across all platforms. The worst kind of seductiveness when it comes to managing a personal brand. E.g.: “I like Tao Lin’s books but he’s such a fucking choicer on Twitter. I mean be a human.”
Dogpile: A network of bloggers who consistently comment on posts by the same author. E.g.: “The art bloggers are dogpiling Paddy Johnson’s post on animated .gifs.”
Gandalf: Someone who is more experienced, more highly followed, and more skilled – a Wizard of socraft. E.g.: “Yeah so @cobaininacomba just Gandalfed me. I mean what is he doing messing with people who only have 50 followers??!” 
