Facebook may not be the trendiest social media platform anymore, but it remains popular for a variety of age groups. Taking it for granted in your social marketing strategy would be a mistake. Whether you’re just not tech savvy or never used it because you prefer other platforms, we’ll walk you through how to use Facebook for your business.
Facebook can do a lot of things and it’s changed a lot since it first arrived on the scene. These are the major parts that make it what it currently is.
A Facebook user’s personal page including a profile picture, bio, and basic personal information like
The page where a user sees posts from their friends, groups, and pages they like.
The history of a single user’s posts and posts they were tagged in. A friend can also post on your timeline. This was formerly called the wall.
A series of calculations that decide what users see on their news feed in what order. It uses factors like
Unlike some other social media platforms, Facebook users can’t follow someone without following them back. To become friends with someone, a user must send a friend request and that person must accept it. A personal account can’t have more than 5,000 friends at one time.
Facebook does have followers, but it means something slightly different than other social networks. When you add new friends, you automatically follow them and they appear on your news feed. If you don’t want to see their posts anymore, you can manually unfollow them without unfriending them. This will remove their posts from your news feed but they will still appear in your friends list.
Places where Facebook users with common interests can post about them. They can be anything from neighborhood groups to pop culture memes to fat cats.
Pages are Facebook profiles for businesses and public figures. Instead of sending friend requests, users like or follow them. Some of the features are different.
Invite friends to events in real life, collect RSVPs, and post updates. Guests can see who else is going.
Send direct, private messages to other Facebook users. It is accessible through Facebook on desktop and its own mobile app.
Short, temporary posts displayed at the top of the feed that disappear after twenty four hours. These were popularized by Snapchat followed by Instagram.
How Facebook alerts users of new likes, comments, and other activity. They come up in a bell icon on the top right corner of the page.
Facebook uses an algorithm to learn each user’s preferences and display content accordingly. Their goal is to drive users to interact with and share content.
Facebook also runs ads in between organic content on the news feed. These ads use behavioral targeting to appear for relevant people. Before September 2011, they showed content in the order it was posted.
Whether you’re using Facebook for a business or for connecting with friends and family, signing up for an account and filling out your personal profile is the first step. Follow this step by step guide to get started.
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Search for your favorite companies, celebrities, sports teams, publications, and entertainment. Then, like and follow their public pages. After that, you’ll see their updates on your news feed.
To find your friends on Facebook you can:
Downloading the Facebook mobile app for iPhone and Android and logging in is the final step in setting up your account. Now you can use the platform on your computer and your phone.
To share a status update, go to the text box at the top of the news feed or your profile page, type your post, and attach any of these features if you want to.
Add an icon outside of the text to show what you’re doing or how you’re feeling.
Share your location.
If you’re posting about spending time with friends, tag them in your status.
If you’re posting about an event, tag it in your status so the event organizers can see it.
Ask friends for recommendations of things to do and places to go and see them on an automatically generated map.
Choose an organization and invite your friends to donate.
Choose a predetermined question and share the answer with your friends.
Any content you share on a status update is also shareable through your Facebook story. You can also add content directly to your story by clicking Add to Your Story on the right hand sidebar.
Facebook may not be as visually-oriented as Instagram, but visual content does well there because it stops other users from scrolling long enough to look.
Facebook isn’t just about sharing your own content. It’s about interacting with others as well. Here are the ways you can do that,
The basic interactions are liking a post, adding a comment, and sharing it with your friends.
If a like doesn’t quite convey how the post made you feel, you can also love, care, laugh, wow, sad, or angry react by holding down the like button.
Any type of content that you can share as a status can also be posted on a Facebook friend’s timeline. The most common use of timeline posting is wishing friends a happy birthday.
You can use Messenger to chat with friends and public pages. To access it, tap the Messages button in the top right corner or select Messages from the left hand sidebar on the homepage. Then, select New Message and type the name of the recipient. If you want to start a group chat, select New Group and add the people you want to include.
You can also use Messenger for phone and video calls. Click on any friend’s name in Messenger and click the phone or video button to call them.
The news feed may be ultimately controlled by the algorithm, but you can change your settings to curate what you see. First, click the downward pointing arrow in the upper right corner and select News Feed Preference. Then, you can
The events tab is the place to go to browse events. You can search by date, location and category. The tab also recommends events that are popular with your friends and are organized by groups you’re in.
The groups tab is the place to manage your group activity. It shows the groups you manage and are a part of, has a groups-only news feed, and recommends groups based on your interests.
Facebook Watch is the video platform within Facebook. From the tab, you can watch videos, follow shows, and search for videos to watch.
You can buy and sell just about anything on Facebook Marketplace. From shoes and clothing, furniture, homemade goods, even apartment sublets.
Facebook hosts a wide variety of games that you can play on your own or with friends.
If you need to change the name, photos, or other branding, click the three dots under the cover photo and select Edit Group Settings. If you’d like to add a new group admin, click Members, click the three dots next to the new admin’s name, and give them admin rights.
Once you have a Facebook page for your business, you can create Facebook ads. Just as the algorithm uses your Facebook activity to decide which content is relevant to you, it allows advertisers to only serve ads to their target audience.
Sometimes people on social media cross boundaries and it becomes necessary to block them. This is especially relevant if you run a public page. Whatever your reason, follow these steps to block and unblock a user from Facebook and from Messenger.
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