What "K" and "M" Mean on Social Media [Updated]

Have you ever noticed that English social media sites often feature random letters of the alphabet? For example, at the time of writing:

• CNN International’s X account has 14.9 “M” followers. 
• This TikTok from British pop star Charli XCX has 211.1 "K" likes
• This Instagram post from US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has 2.3 "M" likes.

And the Japanese royal family's official Instagram account gained more than 270 "K" followers on its first day.

You might know that K is an abbreviation for “one thousand,” but why K? And what about M?

Today, we’ll explain why these letters are used this way and whether these abbreviations can be used in English conversations as well.

K

The K in “10k followers” or “5K likes” comes from the metric system. It’s the same K as the ones in these abbreviations:

• km (kilometer)
• kg (kilogram)
• kB (kilobyte)

But why does K mean 1000? Well, this goes back to ancient Greek. When French scientists were developing the metric system, they took “chilioi,” the Greek word for “thousand” and changed it into the prefix “kilo-.”

In informal English conversations, you can sometimes hear people using K this way, especially when they are talking about money. 

• He makes about 30K a year.
• This position pays 100K annually, plus benefits.

M

M, which represents “million,” also comes from the metric system. It’s the same M in units of measure such as:

• MW (megawatt)
• MB (megabyte)

You will see M used this way in news headlines, especially in financial news. After all, writing “m” or “M” saves a lot of space compared to writing out all of the zeros or the full word. 

• Diamond necklace linked to Marie Antoinette sells for $4.8m
• 'Record breaking' 60m homes watched Tyson vs Paul fight, Netflix says

However, M is not as standard of an abbreviation as K. So you won’t hear people saying things like “The CEO of Facebook makes 23M a year.” In these cases, they would simply say "million," or sometimes "mil," the shorter, informal version.

It's also important to remember that not all news agencies use M as an abbreviation for “million.” One possible reason for this is because a lowercase “m” sometimes means “meter.” And because that abbreviation is also common in headlines, readers may get confused.

So since M isn’t a standard way to abbreviate “million,” don’t be surprised if you see other abbreviations, such as “mln” or “mn.” 

Bonus: “Grand”

Did you know that there’s a casual way to say “a thousand dollars” in English? 

• This car cost me 30 grand.
• The average cost of college tuition in the US is around 35 grand a year.

This expression is believed to have started with American crime organizations in the 1900s. These illegal groups were always moving around “grand,” or large, amounts of money and needed code words to refer to them. Ironically, their code word eventually became a common slang expression around the English-speaking world!

"Grand" can even be shortened to a single letter. In very informal conversations, you can hear people say "G" when referring to a thousand dollars.

• I went to Las Vegas last weekend and won two Gs at the casinos!

Wrap-Up

We hope this quick look at special letters will help you to better understand what you see on social media, read in the news and hear on the street.

However, these aren't the only letters worth studying. In fact, the letter X has many different meanings that students should know, so be sure to learn those as well!

(By the way, don't forget to follow Engoo on our own social media channels!)

• other ways to say