Sometimes the most basic stumbling block to improving your social media skills is learning all the terminology that comes with each platform. If you’ve been using a platform for a while, especially for personal use, you’re probably familiar with a lot of the terms that get thrown around when discussing social media usage. But maybe you’re just starting out on a platform, or you’re starting to use that platform to promote your business or organization and are therefore coming across new features.
This new blog series, Let’s Talk Terminology, will cover some of the basic terms used on three major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Hopefully, you will be able to apply your new knowledge of these terms to getting the word about your business or organization out there!
So let’s dive into our first platform: Facebook.
Account
When we discuss your Facebook account at Wreath Writing and Marketing Services, we are referring to the account that you have set up on Facebook with an email address and a password. If you’re using Facebook for personal reasons as well as to promote your business, then your account probably is linked to a personal email, and you probably have posted updates about your own life or pictures of friends or family. In short, an account encompasses everything that you are doing on Facebook.
Profile
When you create a Facebook account, you’ll likely be setting up a Facebook profile. This profile can include varying degrees of information about you, including your name, a profile picture, your hometown, where you went to school, your likes and dislikes, and much more. Your profile allows people to learn more about you, and it also allows you to connect with others on Facebook. For example, when you’re Liking someone else’s photo or commenting on a news article, you’re probably doing that through your personal profile.
Timeline
Your timeline is your record of things that you post or share on Facebook, or what people have tagged you in on Facebook. (Read more on sharing and tagging below.) This is one organized place where you can view all of the things you have ever posted. Depending on your privacy settings, others can also see your timeline.
Page
Through your Facebook account, you can set up Facebook pages. Pages are great for representing your business or organization on Facebook, because you can do a lot of the actions that you would do through your profile, including Liking things, responding to comments, and posting status updates. However, actions done through a page representing your business should stick to business activities. For example, you wouldn’t want to be commenting on a friend’s picture as your business page, because your comment would appear as being from your business, not yourself, which may cause confusion. For some more information on how to update your business’ page, read this blog post.
Share/Sharing
You may think that sharing something on Facebook means posting a status update, but that’s not quite the case. The Share button is actually its own feature, and it allows you to almost copy and paste content from someone else and share it to your timeline or business page. (Think “retweeting” on Twitter.) This is useful in several ways; it allows information to be spread easily, but any links included in the original post still remain intact, and credit still goes to the original poster as being the creator of the content.
Tags/Tagging
Tagging another profile or page on Facebook is a great way to raise awareness and make connections. Tagging makes it so that a profile or page is linked in a post, which allows other readers to click on that tagged profile or page and be taken right to them. It also alerts the other user that they have been tagged, which may lead to future connections or collaborations. For more information on tagging someone or something on Facebook, read this blog post.
Group
A Facebook group is a collection of profiles and pages that usually share a common interest. Facebook groups can be created around any kind of shared interest, from local town groups, hiking groups, young professionals groups, and more! Facebook groups often have their own set of rules set by the admin, who is in charge of moderating conversations. (An admin is usually the creator of the group, and they have a special set of privileges, usually including the power to close comments and remove profiles from the group.) Usually, groups revolve around conversations initiated by group members about the shared interest: for example, a local town group might be full of conversations about new school policies and an upcoming local election.
Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace can be viewed as an local alternative to Craigslist. Almost anything you can think of can be sold on Marketplace, from clothing to furniture to vehicles. Typically, Marketplace is used more for yard sale-style items, not by businesses trying to sell their products.
Events
Events can be created by a profile or a page, and they can be a great way to advertise something going on, whether it is in-person or virtual. Facebook events often include important information like the date and time of the event, and they also allow for discussions and questions within the event. Events can be a great way to gauge interest too, as they include options for other participants to select if they are attending or not.
Are there still Facebook terms that you are unsure about? Leave a comment, and we can address more terms in a future post!
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