WHAT IS FACEBOOK FOR? ITS 11 MAIN USES - GEOGRAFÍA - 2025

Facebook serves different areas such as business, education and even for the promotion of social causes. This popular network is such a fundamental socialization space today that it has not only been limited to the domestic sphere.

Created in 2004 for the personal use of Harvard students, it currently has more than 1900 million users worldwide, being a social media translated into more than 70 languages.

This social network has a great diversity of tools that allow its users to share comments, photographs, links and all kinds of content. Furthermore, their groups have become a way of sharing common knowledge and interests.

You may be interested 14 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Facebook.

Main uses and tools of Facebook

Facebook is the most democratic social network. Their audiences are very diverse in terms of their age, sex, social characteristics and occupations, thereby motivating them to create very diverse content.

To a large extent, this diversity is due to the wide variety of tools offered by this social network, such as:

-Share resources: all users can share text, image or video information, automatically visible to all their contacts.

-Interaction: it is also possible for users to interact with the information that others have published through comments or predetermined reactions.

-Create pages for companies or causes: they are publicly accessible spaces that allow information to be shared about a company or a specific initiative.

-Create groups: they are groups that allow interaction between users with a specific intention. They can be open, closed or secret.

-Events: these are virtual spaces aimed at sharing specific information about events. They can be open, closed or secret.

Facebook tools applications

Of course, the essential function of Facebook is to establish communication networks between people. However, this basic function has facilitated the development of multiple alternatives, making this social network go further and grow even more.

These are some examples of the activities that currently take advantage of the tools that Facebook offers:

Advertising and business

Facebook is a digital platform that millions of people access every day around the world. This makes it have a very extensive audience, even wider than television and the press, the so-called "mass media."

On the other hand, Facebook has standardized and valuable information about all its users. Learn about your gender, age, and location, as well as your tastes, preferences, and interests.

For these reasons, it has become an ideal platform for anyone who wants to publicize their products and services.

On Facebook it is not only possible for advertising to reach many people, it is also possible to make it reach specific audiences.

News and current affairs

Another fundamental characteristic of Facebook is the so-called “virality”. This is a form of interaction typical of social networks, which occurs thanks to the possibility of sharing content that has been published by other users.

The phenomenon of virality is similar to the way a contagious disease spreads, hence its name. It occurs when a user shares an interesting link to be seen by all their contacts.

If two of your contacts find the content attractive and decide to share it too, it can be seen and shared by more and more network users.

In this way, the information is multiplied exponentially and is disseminated throughout the network, achieving maximum diffusion.

Of course, an extremely useful phenomenon for the media and news agencies. It is for this reason that journalism has found an ally on Facebook.

Education

In the hierarchy of Facebook groups all users are equal. That is why they can share information and participate in a democratic way in the discussions that take place in these spaces.

This participation mechanism has found great popularity in the field of education. Currently teachers of different academic levels, they create groups to share debates with their students in an educational and fun way.

On the other hand, teachers have also learned to value the diversity of resources that can be shared in this social network.

Sharing educational videos or news related to the topics covered in class are also ways to take advantage of Facebook in the educational field.

Events

Another of the fundamental tools of Facebook are events. Virtual spaces designed to share key information about events.

From the point of view of the organizers it has different advantages. If it is a large event, it works as an advertising tool and to provide accurate information to attendees.

On the other hand, if it is a small event, it works as a management tool. In addition to the basic information, it allows an estimate of the people who plan to attend or receive opinions and suggestions.

From the point of view of the attendees, it also has advantages. It is possible to access a whole calendar of nearby events that fulfill the functionality of a cultural agenda. In addition, they allow you to easily communicate with the organizers for additional information.

Social causes

Another possible use of Facebook are social causes and demonstrations. This social network allows people to be contacted who probably would never have been able to have contact through any other means, but who share ideologies and causes.

This has allowed the development of movements that have arisen within Facebook or that were born outside but have used this tool to connect.

Facebook is an ideal tool for these emerging social movements because groups allow information sharing, debate and organization.

The pages allow to promote causes and events allow to call for face-to-face demonstrations.

Research

All the aforementioned activities, added to social interaction, have become one more way to build human relationships.

Public opinion, entertainment and consumer habits are currently also being built within Facebook.

For this reason, the academy has become interested in this space as a source of valuable information about society.

Digital ethnography or cybernetnography is a data collection technique that is applied in all types of virtual environments. Among them, Facebook is one of the most analyzed, precisely because of the great activity and diversity of its users.

You may be interested in Facebook Addiction: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment.

References

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2. Bugler, P. (2014). How useful is Facebook as an educational tool at university level? Recovered from: ela-newsportal.com.
3. Dalsgaard, J. (2016). The Ethnographic Use of Facebook in Everyday Life. Recovered from: tandfonline.com.
4. Dolphi. L. (2015). Social Network Sites: Facebook For Education? Recovered from: elearningindustry.com.
5. Nation, D. (2017). Why Should You Use Facebook? Recovered from: lifewire.com.