Glossary
The vocabulary of the job, plainly
Every term has its own page, with a one-sentence definition and what you actually need to understand about it. 64 entries so far.
A
agency commissionAn agency commission is the share of a creator's sales a management agency keeps, set as a percentage of a base the contract defines: the full price fans paid, or what the platform left.auto-renewAuto-renew is the platform setting that bills a fan's subscription again at the end of every billing cycle, keeping his access open without any action from him until he switches it off.average order valueAverage order value, or AOV, is total revenue for a period divided by the number of purchases in that period; it measures the size of a sale, not how many fans bought.
C
chargebackA chargeback is a payment a fan disputes with his bank or card issuer, which then reverses the charge and pulls the money back out of the creator's balance, often weeks after the sale.chatbotA chatbot is a program that holds a conversation with a person in writing, choosing what to say next either from a fixed script of rules or from a trained language model.chatterA chatter is the person who writes a creator's private messages under her name during an assigned shift, handling replies, follow-ups and paid offers, often across several accounts at once.chattingChatting is the work of writing a creator's private messages under her name on a fan subscription platform (replying, keeping the relationship going and selling paid content), usually in shifts across several accounts.chatting agencyA chatting agency is a company that staffs a creator's inbox with trained chatters as a paid service, covering shifts and sales conversations while the client keeps the account, content and pricing.churnChurn is the share of subscribers lost during a period, expressed as a percentage of the subscribers present at the start, the standard measure of how quickly a paying audience shrinks.cohort analysisCohort analysis groups fans by the month they arrived and tracks each group separately over time, so that changes in performance can be told apart from changes in volume.content leakA content leak is paid creator content (a photo, a video, a private message file) reappearing outside the platform that sold it, republished by someone without the creator's permission.conversation automationConversation automation is the use of software to handle parts of a fan inbox without a person writing each message: sorting threads, sending follow-ups, and drafting replies for review.conversion rateConversion rate in chatting is the number of sales divided by the number of conversations over the same period, a percentage whose meaning depends entirely on what the team counted as a conversation.creator agencyA creator agency is a company that takes over the running of a creator's account as a whole (posting, pricing, fan conversations and reporting), usually paid a share of what that account earns.creator dashboardA creator dashboard is a single screen that gathers a creator's or an agency's key figures (revenue, subscribers, sales and payouts) from the platforms where the sales happen, and updates them without manual entry.creator economyThe creator economy is the way creators earn directly from their own audience rather than from advertisers, on platforms that host the content, collect the payment and keep a share of every sale.creator managerA creator manager is the person in an agency who runs one creator's account day to day, setting prices, planning what gets posted, and writing the conversation rules the chatters follow with fans.cross-sellA cross-sell is an offer of a different kind of content to a fan who has already bought something else: a sideways move across the catalogue rather than a step up in price.custom contentCustom content is a photo or video a creator shoots because one fan asked for that exact thing, sold to nobody else, priced above catalogue work and promised for an agreed date.
F
fan chattingFan chatting is the phrase agencies and job ads use for staffing a creator's paid subscription inbox as a service: scheduled hours, a defined tone of voice and escalation rules around the writing.fan segmentationFan segmentation is the practice of splitting a creator's subscribers into groups defined by what they have bought, how recently, and whether they are still subscribed, so each group receives a different message.fan typesFan types are the short list of behavioural categories (new, regular buyer, whale, expired) that a creator's audience is sorted into, so that whoever writes the next message knows what to send.fanbaseA fanbase is everyone who has ever subscribed to or followed a creator's account (paying, lapsed and free alike), counted as one headline number that says nothing about how many are still active.first response timeFirst response time is the delay between a fan sending a message and anyone answering it, measured per thread, and usually the first number in an inbox to show that coverage has broken.follow-upA follow-up is the message that reopens a thread a fan let go quiet in the past few days, picking up his last real subject so that answering is easy.free pageA free page is a creator account with no subscription price, open to anyone, used to collect followers and earn from them in private messages or on a separate paid account.free trialA free trial is a promotion that opens a creator's paid account free for a set number of days, after which the normal subscription charge starts unless the fan cancels before the window closes.
L
lifetime valueLifetime value, or LTV, is the total a fan spends on a creator from arrival to departure (subscriptions, purchases and tips combined, after the platform's cut) rather than in any single month.limited offerA limited offer is a price or a piece of content made available for a stated period or to a stated number of fans, so that waiting costs the fan the chance to buy.
M
management contractA management contract is the written agreement between a creator and an agency that sets out the services provided, the agency's share, the term, any exclusivity, content ownership and how either party exits.mass messageA mass message is one piece of text sent at once to a selected group of a creator's fans, usually to sell something, and written without reference to what any of them has said.message sequenceA message sequence is a run of pre-written messages that go out automatically at set intervals once a fan triggers them: by subscribing, by buying, or by going quiet.
O
OFMOFM, short for Online Fan Management, is the trade of running a content creator's paid fan account on their behalf (conversations, posting and pricing), usually for a percentage of sales.OFM agencyAn OFM agency, short for Online Fan Management, is a company that runs creators' paid fan accounts for them, staffing the inbox in shifts and handling pricing and posting for a share of sales.onboardingCreator onboarding is the sequence of setup steps between a creator signing with an agency and her first paid message: access, pricing, hard limits, voice, content stock and named shift cover.
P
payoutA payout is the transfer of a creator's available balance from the platform to a bank account, released on the platform's schedule and only once the balance clears a minimum threshold.payout thresholdA payout threshold is the minimum balance a creator platform requires before a withdrawal can be requested, so earnings below that line stay on the platform until later sales push the total over it.pinned postA pinned post is the message a creator fixes at the top of her profile on a subscription platform, so it is the first thing every visitor sees, whatever has been posted since.PPVA PPV, short for pay-per-view, is a photo or video that stays locked inside a private message on a creator platform until one fan pays the price attached to it.price tierA price tier is one of a small set of fixed price levels written down in advance, so paid content is quoted from a list instead of priced live in the conversation.promoA promo is a temporary cut to a creator's subscription price, advertised for a fixed window to bring in more subscribers at a lower entry fee than the account normally charges.
R
retentionSubscriber retention is the share of subscribers present at the start of a period who are still paying at the end of it, expressed as a percentage of that starting base.revenue splitA revenue split is the way a single sale on a creator platform divides between the platform, the agency and the creator, each share taken in turn from what the previous one left.revenue statementA revenue statement is the document a creator platform issues for a closed period, listing sales, the platform's cut and any reversals, and showing what was earned rather than what has been transferred.
S
sales funnelA creator sales funnel is the path a fan travels from first seeing a creator's page to paying for content, through five stages (visitor, follower, subscriber, replier, buyer), each of which loses people.scriptA chatting script is the pre-written material a chatter draws on: openers, replies to common objections and ways to name a price, organised by stage rather than sent word for word.shift rotationShift rotation is the way an inbox's covered hours are split into consecutive shifts held by different chatters, each picking up the conversations the previous shift left behind.subscriptionA creator subscription is a recurring monthly fee that opens everything posted on a creator's account for as long as it is paid, unlike a pay-per-view item sold once to one fan.subscription platformA subscription platform is the website that hosts a creator's content, charges fans, and pays out the balance, keeping a share of every transaction while leaving audience, content and conversations to the creator.
T
taggingFan tagging is the practice of marking individual fans with short labels: what they bought, what they refused, what they must never be offered, so any chatter can find those facts again.teaserA teaser is the free preview attached to a locked paid message on a creator platform (a blurred image and the sales copy with it), written to make unlocking feel worth the price.tipA tip is a voluntary payment a fan sends a creator on a subscription platform with no content attached and nothing asked in return, counted separately from sales because nothing was delivered for it.
W
watermarkA watermark is a mark embedded in a photo or video (a handle, a code, a fan reference) that survives copying and identifies which account or which sale a leaked file came from.whaleA whale is a fan whose spending is out of proportion to everyone else's on a creator's account, large enough that his departure is visible in the month's total.win-backA win-back is a message sent to a fan who stopped subscribing or stopped buying, written to restart a dead conversation rather than to sell, and timed in weeks rather than days.