An uptick is an incremental increase. Generally it is in small increments and often commonplace in the instances I've seen it used.

Oxford New American Dictionary on my computer uptick | ˈəptɪk | noun chiefly North American a small increase.

The only place I've seen this word used is with the stock market. With anything else, the words or phrases "better" or "things are looking up" are used. Uptick is very rarely used.

I have never actually seen this word before but the definition I found was "a small increase". This is usualy used in the case of the stock market, if a utility upticked, the price slightly increased.