What is Facebook
Social Media – What is Facebook
Facebook is a social media website that allows users to share pictures, thoughts, and other content with friends, family, and people they don’t know. At the same time, Facebook is a marketing tool that businesses and organizations around the world use to reach a wider audience and engage with existing fans and customers.
Find out more about what is Facebook and how you can use it to your advantage.
What is Facebook – The History
Created by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates in 2004, Facebook was initially intended as a network for college students at Harvard. By 2005 it had 6 million users and by 2012 it surpassed the 1 billion users mark.
Facebook ushered in a new age for social media. It redefined the concept of a social network and added more and more features over the years yet managed to remain simple and accessible.
As more and more people adopted Facebook, the network’s user base increased in age. Facebook fan pages became valuable tools for companies, organizations, and individuals to promote their business.
Today, it’s the largest social media network in the world, with over 2.4 billion active users every month.
What is Facebook – How Does it Work?
Facebook has a simple setup process that requires users to provide their personal or business information. Users can then upload and share photos and videos and other content with others and make new friends.
At the core of Facebook are profile pages with a main picture, user information, and photo galleries that act as profiles. Each profile has a timeline with content that others can see and comment on, as well as a box with friends and information about the user’s interests and likes.
An important component of Facebook, and one that’s been called into question over the years, is privacy. Users can choose who can see their content and activity, limiting these to their friends or friends of friends – or making them available to everyone.
By design, Facebook is more open than other communication tools, allowing users to share content and updates with all their friends or fans at once.
What is Facebook – Key Features
Facebook brings together into a streamlined interface many features, most of them social by design. Some of the most notable Facebook features include:
- Likes – Users can “Like” profile photos and content that they find interesting or entertaining. Likes are counted—posts and images with many Likes are considered popular.
- Shares – Users can share content they find interesting. Shared content appears on their profiles.
- Commenting – Users can share their thoughts or impressions on images and other content by commenting on them.
- News Feed – A stream of updates, the scrollable news feed on Facebook brings together all content and updates posted by your friends or from pages on Facebook that you follow. It’s where you keep track of what’s going on.
- Friends – Users can add other users as “Friends” provided that they have their consent. Friends show up on one’s profile.
- Groups – Users can create and join groups based on shared interests. Group activity shows in the newsfeed of all members active in the group.
- Tags – Users can tag each other in posts and photos, which then appear in the Timeline.
- Timeline – The Timeline is a component of the profile page where users share information about themselves.
- Status update – These are short, text-based posts that friends and fans can react to.
- Messenger – Friends can talk directly on Facebook using the built-in chatting feature. The same feature allows customers to communicate directly with brands or organizations.
All these features are also available on the mobile version of Facebook. It’s important not to confuse the main Facebook mobile app with Facebook Messenger, which is used exclusively for chat, and which works even if you deactivate your Facebook account.
What is Facebook – The Wrap Up
More than a social network, Facebook has become for many people around the world part of their lifestyle. At the same time, it is a powerful marketing and advertising channel for businesses.
Whether you use Facebook or not, its significance is hard to downplay even today when there are many other popular social networks around.
Contact Ladical Digital Marketing
Do you have a need for a Facebook Business Page, or just have more questions on how your business can benefit from Facebook. We’re here to help you out! Please feel free to contact us using our contact form or if you prefer call us directly now at (888) 750-8860.
