Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms

pdfcrowd.comopen in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API
Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing
Terms
By Jennifer Beese on February 17, 2015
FACEBOOK HOME
Sprout Social Call us at:1.866.878.3231 LO G IN
INSIGHTSFilter: NONE ARTICLES RESOURCES PRESS

By Jennifer Beese on February 17, 2015
Facebook
Whether you’re a novice or experienced Facebook marketer, it’s easy to get
tripped up on terminology. The social network has an extensive vocabulary that
you’ll probably never be quizzed on, but knowing the difference between terms
such as “total reach” and “organic reach” will impact your Facebook strategy.
We’ve compiled some of the most commonly used Facebook terms that you’ll
come across as a marketer. Our resource is broken up into sections for
convenience: General, Pages, and Insights.
General Definitions
This section might be a bit of a refresher for most readers. But if you or your
admins are new to Facebook, it’s good to get acquainted with these terms as
soon as possible.
1. Account Settings: Your settings are used to manage basic account
preferences. Here you can edit your name or email, change your notification
preferences, turn on extra security features, and more.
2. App: Facebook Apps are created by third parties and add more features and
FREE TOOLS
CONNECT
Visit our social media
channels:
TwitterLinkedInFacebookGoogle+
RSS
FEATURED
Try our free
Engagement
Report
Share jobs on
social with Job
Board

functionality to your Facebook experience.
3. Badge: A Badge is a personalized box you create to share your Facebook
profile, photos, or Page on other websites.
4. Chat: Chat is a feature that lets you send instant messages to your friends.
5. Event: Use the Event feature to organize events, gather RSVPs, respond to
invites, and keep up with what your friends are doing.
6. Follow: Follow is a way to hear from people you’re interested in, even if
you’re not friends. The Follow button is always a way to fine-tune your News
Feed to get the types of updates you want to see.
7. Friend: Friends are people you connect and share with on Facebook. You can
send as well as receive Friend requests from other Facebook members.
8. Groups: Facebook Groups make it easy to connect with specific sets of
people, such as coworkers. They’re dedicated spaces where you can share
updates, photos, and documents as well as message other Group members.
9. Like: Clicking Like is a way to give positive feedback and connect with things
you care about. When you Like something, the action appears as an update on
your Timeline. Liking a post means you were interested in what a friend was
talking about (even if you didn’t leave a comment). Liking a Page means you’re
connecting to that Page, so you’ll start to see its stories in your News Feed. The
Page will also appear on your Profile, and you’ll appear on the Page as a person
Start Publishing to Your
LinkedIn Company Pages
from Sprout
How to Find the Best
Twitter Hashtags

who Likes that Page.
10. Messages: Messages are similar to private email messages. They appear in
your Facebook Inbox and can include text messages, chats, emails, and mobile
messages from your Facebook Friends.
11. News Feed: Your News Feed is a constantly updating list of stories in the
middle of your homepage. It includes status updates, photos, videos, links, App
activities, and Likes from the people, Pages, and Groups you’re associated with.
12. Notes: The Notes feature lets you publish messages in rich-text format,
giving you greater flexibility than simple updates allow. In addition to formatting
your text, you can add photos and tag other people in your note.
13. Notifications: Notifications are updates about activity on Facebook. For
example, you can be notified when an update is made to a Group you belong to
or when someone accepts your Friend request. While you can’t turn off
notifications entirely, you can adjust what you’re notified about and how.
14. Poke: People use the Poke feature when they want to get someone’s
attention or say hello. When you Poke someone, they’ll receive a notification
letting them know that they’ve been poked and by whom.
15. Profile: Your Profile is your collection of photos, stories, and experiences
that tell your story. It includes your Timeline, profile picture, biography, and
personal information. It can be public or private, but is only for non-commercial
use.
36 Free Tools for
Creating Unique Images
How To Schedule
Facebook Posts With
Sprout Social
Always Up-to-Date Guide
to Social Media Image
Sizes

16. Search: Search is a tool to find people, posts, photos, places, Pages,
Groups, apps, and events on Facebook.
17. Social Plugins: Social Plugins are tools that other websites can use to
provide people with personalized and social experiences. When you interact
with social plugins, you share your experiences off Facebook with your friends
on Facebook.
18. Tagging: A tag links a person, Page, or place to something you post, like a
status update or photo. For example, you can tag a photo to say who’s in it or
post a status update and say who you’re with or where you are.
19. Ticker: The Ticker is positioned on the right side of your homepage and is
updated with your friends’ activities in real-time. You can use it to keep up with
the latest news as it happens, listen to music with your friends, or hover over a
story to join in the conversation.
20. Timeline: Your Timeline is where you can see your posts or posts you’ve
been tagged in displayed by date. It’s also part of your Profile.
21. Timeline Review: This is a tool that lets you approve or reject posts that
you’ve been tagged in before they go on your Timeline. When people you’re not
friends with tag you in a post, they automatically go to Timeline review.
22. Top Story: Top Stories include the stories published since you last checked
News Feed that Facebook’s algorithm thinks you’ll find interesting. These items
VIEW MORE ARTICLES →
How to Use Hashtags on
Every Social Media
Network

might be different depending on how long it’s been since you last visited your
News Feed.
23. Trending: Trending shows you a list of topics and hashtags that have
recently spiked in popularity on Facebook. This is a personalized list based on
your location, Pages you’ve liked, and what’s trending across Facebook.
Pages Definitions

Although your Facebook Page is just one of many aspects of the social network,
it has a lot of its own terminology and features. This section focuses on the most
important terms that you and your team need to know.
24. About Section: This section contains basic information that’ll help visitors
quickly learn about your Facebook Page. Different types of basic information will
appear in your Page’s About section depending on your Page’s category.
25. Activity Log: The Activity Log helps you manage your Page’s Timeline. It
shows you a complete list of posts and comments by your Page, including posts
you’ve hidden. Only people who help manage your Page can see the Activity
Log.
26. Boost Post: Boosted posts appear higher in News Feed so there’s a better
chance that your audience will see them. You can boost any post you create on
your Page, including status updates, photos, videos, and offers. The cost to
boost a post depends on how many people you want to reach.

27. Check-ins: This action announces a person’s location to their Facebook
friends. If your Page includes an address, it will appear in a list of possible
locations to check into when people are nearby. Once someone has checked in,
a story (definition below) will be created in their friends’ News Feeds.
28. Cover Photo: This is the large picture at the top of your Page. All cover
photos are public, which means that anyone visiting your Page will be able to
see it. Best practices include using a unique image that represents your brand.
29. Liked by Page: This section features all of the other Pages that you, as the
Page, Like.
30. Milestone: Milestones are a special type of Page post that lets you highlight
key moments on your Page’s Timeline. You can use milestones to share
important events that tell the story of your Page is about.
31. Offer: Certain businesses, brands, and organizations can share discounts
with their customers by posting an offer on their Facebook Page. When
someone claims an offer, they’ll receive an email that they can show at the
Page’s physical location to get the discount.
32. Page: Facebook Pages help businesses, organizations, and brands share
their stories and connect with people. Like profiles, you can customize Pages by
posting stories, hosting events, adding apps, and more. People who like your
Page can get updates in their News Feeds.
33. Page Admin: When you create a Page, you automatically become the

Page’s admin, which means only you can change how the Page looks and post
as the Page. You can then assign roles to other people to help you manage your
Page.
34. Page Roles: There are five different roles for people who help manage
Facebook Pages. These roles include admin, editor, moderator, advertiser, and
analyst. Any person assigned to these roles will log into their own personal
accounts and work on the Page from there.
35. Pin to Top: Any post that you pin will move to the top of your Page’s
Timeline and a “pinned” icon will appear in the top-right corner of the post. Your
pinned post will stay at the top of your Page’s Timeline for seven days. After
that, it’ll return to the date it was posted on your Page’s Timeline. Only posts
created by your Page can be pinned; posts that other people add to your Page
aren’t supported by the feature.
36. Post Attribution: Your posts, Likes, and comments on your Page’s timeline
will be attributed to the Page itself — even if you’re logged into Facebook as
yourself and not the Page. Whether you’re creating a post or scrolling through
News Feed, you can choose to act as a Page or as yourself from a convenient
drop-down box.
Under Page Settings > Post Attribution, you can change the default to post as
the individual rather than the Page. With this enabled, when anyone who
manages your Page creates a post or comments, it’ll be attributed to that
individual rather than the Page.

37. Posts to Page: Posts to Page are any posts made to your Page by someone
other than an admin. This way, your Timeline will showcase messages and
content from your brand only. Any questions or feedback from customers will be
found in the Posts to Page section on the left-hand side of your Page.
38. Suggested Edits: People viewing Pages with locations that they can check
into may see the option to suggest edits. This lets people suggest information
that might be missing, such as a category, phone number, or address. If multiple
people make the same suggestion, this information can be added to your Page
to help other people find it. Page admins can confirm or remove information
that’s been suggested.
39. Tabs: These are sections that come with your Page when you create it. They
keep your Page organized and help people see specific content types, like
photos and events.
40. Verified Page: Some Pages and profiles are verified by Facebook to let
people know that they’re authentic. These can include celebrities and public
figures, global brands and businesses, and media. Once verified, you’ll see a
blue badge next to your Page’s name.
Insights Definitions

While Facebook Insights is similar to traditional web analytics data offerings,
some of the terminology is unique to the platform. To make sure you’re not
confused by any of the information you find in your Insights data, the following

definitions should help make things more clear.
Analyzing Your Audience
From demographic characteristics to where they were before they came to your
Page, Facebook Insights offers you a wide variety of metrics to help you analyze
your Page’s audience. The following terms will help you understand what the
data provided through Insights means so you can use it more effectively.
41. Cities/Countries: This is the number of people who saw any content about
your Page grouped by country or city, based on IP address.
42. Daily Active Users: This metric is the number of people who have viewed or
interacted with your Facebook Page on a specific day. It’s categorized by the
type of action they perform.
43. Engaged Users: This is the number of engaged individuals who have
clicked anywhere on one of your Facebook Page posts. For example, someone
could have Liked one of your posts, commented on it, or shared it.
44. External Referrers: External referrers are the number of views your
Facebook Page received from website URLs that aren’t part of Facebook.com.
45. Fans: In Page Insights, and other places on Facebook, “fans” is another way
to refer to the people who Like your Page.
46. Friends of Fans: This shares the number of unique individuals who are

friends with people who Like your Facebook Page. These people represent the
total potential reach of content you publish to your Page.
47. Gender and Age: These demographic metrics detail the percentage of
people who saw any content about your Page for each age and gender bracket,
based on the information people enter in their personal profiles.
48. Language: This is the number of people who saw any content about your
Page grouped by language, based on default language settings.
49. Like Sources: This is the number of times your Facebook Page was Liked,
categorized by where the Like occurred during a specific date range. This lets
you see whether the Likes come from your Page itself, from your website, or
from other sources.
50. Monthly Active Users: This is the number of people who have viewed your
Facebook Page or interacted with it during the previous 30 days. By tracking this
metric, you can determine the degree to which your Facebook influence
fluctuates monthly or seasonally.
51. Net Likes: This is the difference between the number of people who have
Liked your Page and the number who unliked it over a specific period.
52. New Likes: This total is the number of unique individuals who Liked your
Facebook Page during a specific date range that you set yourself.
53. Organic Reach: Organic reach is the number of unique individuals who saw

a specific post from your Page on their News Feeds, tickers, or directly on their
Pages.
54. Other Clicks: This is a measurement of clicks not on the content of your
Facebook Page post, but rather of clicks on the Page title or to “see more.”
55. Paid Reach: This is the number of unique individuals who saw a specific
post from your Page through a paid source like a Facebook Ad or Promoted
Post.
56. Post Reach: This is the number of people who have seen your post. You
post counts as reaching someone when it’s shown in their News Feed. Figures
displayed in Insights are for the first 28 days after a post was created and
include people viewing your post on desktop and mobile.
57. Reach: Reach is the number of people who received impressions (definition
below) of a Page post. Reach might be less than impressions since one person
can make multiple impressions.
58. Story: This term is used to reference the ways people can interact with your
Page, including:
Liking your Facebook Page
Liking, commenting on, or sharing a post from your Page
Answering a question you asked on your Page
Responding to an event you posted on your Page

Mentioning your Page within their own posts
Tagging your Page in an uploaded picture
Checking in to or recommending your Page
59. Total Likes: This is the number of unique individuals who have clicked the
button to Like your Facebook Page.
60. Total Reach: Total reach is the number of unique individuals who have
actually seen any content related to your Facebook Page. This includes content
published on your Page as well as Facebook Ads and Promoted Posts that lead
people to your Page.
The sum of Post Reach won’t equal Total Reach because Pages can reach
people through content other than posts. For instance, if someone visits a Page
after searching for it, they’ll be counted in Total Reach but not Post Reach. Also,
if someone sees more than one Page post, they’ll be counted in Post Reach for
each post they see, but they’ll only be counted once in Total Reach.
61. Unlikes: This is the number of unique individuals who have unliked your
Facebook Page during a specific date range.
62. When Your Fans Are Online: This shows you when the people who Like
your Page are on Facebook content.
63. Where Your Page Likes Happened: This is the number of times your
Facebook Page was Liked, broken down by where it happened. People can Like

your Page using the Like button on your Page or from Page suggestions, ads,
and stories about others who have Liked your Page.
64. Viral Reach: Viral reach is the number of unique individuals who saw a
specific post from your Page through a story published by one of their Facebook
friends.
Measuring Content and Engagement
It’s also helpful to learn which content you publish on your Page is most popular
and creates the most engagement from your audience. The following Facebook
terms explain some of the most popular Insights metrics that you can use to
measure content performance and engagement levels.
65. Audience Retention: This metric details views of your video at each
moment as a percentage of all views, including videos shorter than three
seconds.
66. Daily Page Activity: This breaks down the different ways people engaged
with your Facebook Page on a specific day other than by commenting on or
Liking your posts. You’ll be able to see when fans post to your Page, upload
photos or videos to your Page (if enabled), write reviews, or mention your Page
in updates of their own or to friends.
67. Daily Story Feedback: This breaks down how people responded to your
stories by engaging with them (through Likes or comments) or unsubscribing

from them (which means your Page stories won’t appear in their News Feeds in
the future), on a specific day.
68. Impressions: Impressions are the number of times a post from your Page is
displayed, whether the post is clicked or not. People may see multiple
impressions of the same post. For example, someone might see a Page update
in News Feed once, and then a second time if their friend shares it.
69. Media Consumption: This is the number of times a piece of media content
that you published on your Page – including a video, photo, or audio clip – is
clicked and viewed on a specific day.
70. Page Content or Post Feedback: This is the number of Likes and
comments on stories published in your Page’s News Feed during the time
period you select.
71. Page Views: Page views are the total number of times your Facebook Page
was viewed during the time period you select.
72. Pages to Watch: This helps you compare the performance of your Page and
posts with similar Pages on Facebook.
73. Post Views: Post views are the number of times a story published on your
Facebook Page News Feed was viewed during the time period you select.
74. Tab Views: This is the total number of times each tab in your Facebook
Page was viewed when people were logged in to Facebook during the time

period you select.
75. Video Views: This is the total number of times a video posted by your Page
was viewed for three seconds or more.

JENNIFER BEESE
Jennifer is a former sorority girl turned geek, writer, and
mobile app enthusiast. She has worked as a community
manager/social media strategist for several startups. Most
recently she has been writing for Sprout Social and Today’s
iPhone. Jennifer is passionate about social media, apps, and
kinesiology – she literally has a skeleton in her closet.
UP NEXT
6 Ways to Embed Facebook
on Your Website

Sign in or Post as Guest 25 people listening
7 COMMENTS

13 hours ago
4 days ago
Newest | Oldest | Top Comments
VickiCorson
YusufChowdhury
This post is pure genius. Great guide to share with friends and clients. Sure will save
me from having to explain so many of the terms. Now if you just created an
infographic with all the parts labeled to match the definitions, my business life would
be complete.
LIKE R EP LY
8 hours agoDarryl Villacorta moderator
@VickiCorson Thanks, Vicki! We'll be sure to look into the idea of a
supplementary infographic. Great suggestion!
LIKE R EP LY
This is really great. I like how you organized these terms with great level of
importance for each. The definition are so easy to understand as well. This post will
be one of my go to reference for FB terms. Thank you Jennifer
1 LIKE R EP LY
3 days agojennifer beese moderator
+ Follow Share Post comment as...

6 days ago
6 days ago
WynaAlfandani
donnamerrilltribe
@YusufChowdhury Happy I could help, Yusuf. Thanks for reading!
LIKE R EP LY
Finally, someone gather them in one ! This sure helps alot, thankyou Jennifer.
1 LIKE R EP LY
Hi Jennifer,
This glossary sure comes in handy. I love FB from social engagement to marketing on
it. I will share this with my friends. Most people get all confused about this and you
have given a well defined way of using the language here. Thanks so much, Donna
LIKE R EP LY
6 days agojennifer beese moderator
@donnamerrilltribe My pleasure, Donna. I'm happy I could help. Thanks for
reading!
LIKE R EP LY

TwitterTwitter Certified Product
Sprout is a Twitter certified partner
for Engagement and Analytics.
FacebookPreferred Marketing Developer
Sprout is a Facebook Preferred
Marketing Developer for
Management & Insights.
Google+Google+ Pages API Partner
Sprout is a Google+ Pages
certified third-party management
tool.
Sprout Social131 S. Dearborn St., Ste. 1000 Chicago, IL 60603 1.866.878.3231
FEATURES
Engagement
Monitoring
Social CRM
Publishing
Analytics
Team
Collaboration
HelpDesk
Mobile
SOLUTIONS
Customer Service
Social
Management
Social Marketing
Agencies
ABOUT
Pricing
Customers
Company
Careers
Privacy
Legal
Brand Assets
SUPPORT
Email Us
System Status
DOWNLOAD
iPhone/iPad
Android
INSIGHTS
Articles
Resources
Press
Contact Insights
SHARE
TWEET
SHARE
SHARE
PLUS 1
SECURE, RELIABLE and TRUSTED
Sign up to have social media resources sent to your inbox every week.
youremail@company.com SIGN ME UP!

Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (10)

Similar to Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms

Similar to Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Your Handy Guide to Facebook Marketing Terms