What do you think of when you hear the word group?  Facebook is probably not your first response.

Being part of a group or creating a group infers a common interest.  That’s the reasoning behind creating a Facebook group – to be a community of people with a common interest.

I’ll highlight 3 benefits to maintaining a Facebook group:

#1.  Relationships:  groups allow members to engage in group chat.  Members can exchange information, strengthen and build relationships and be social!

#2.  Free P.R.: Facebook groups are promoted in the sidebar of Facebook pages – a no cost promotional benefit for the group.  Keep this in mind when naming your group.  A descriptive name will help to define the group’s focus and attract future members.

#3.  Viral Marketing:  the share feature allows members to send content to friends and associates outside of the group.  These non-group members have the ability to forward this information to others.  Allowing the content to reach persons on various platforms.

Facebook is an evolving social network that offers several alternatives to promote your business.  Remember, Facebook is FREE…use it to its fullest capacity.

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Social media is here to stay.  A blogger wrote “if you aren’t part of a social network – the world isn’t passing you by – it has passed you by!”.

If you are new to social media or still considering joining the masses; here’s a cheat sheet of common terms used in the social media arena:

Blogs: short for “web logs” – allows companies and individuals to interact with consumers, target audience and friends.  The preferred platform is WordPress.  Blogs can be targeted – photography, basket weaving, golf or general interest.  It’s a forum to illicit communication and provides information.

Feeds or RSS Feeds: these programs are used by social networking sites – as well as blogs – to allow subscribers to receive updates without visiting the actual site.  The feeds are aggregated to a site of your choice – Google Reader, Yahoo Reader or a similar aggregator – to allow for 1 stop reading.

Micro-blogging: social networking or marketing using a maximum of 140 characters.  The most popular platform for this type of interaction is Twitter.

Podcast: audio or video content that subscribers can receive automatically – similar to RSS fees.  A popular platform to access podcast is via iTunes.

Trackback: linking a blog to another related blog post or comment on another blog site.  This is mutually beneficial to both blogs as readers can reference both posts and drive traffic to both sites.

Viral Marketing: the wide-spread awareness of a product or service via social media platforms.

Widgets: code embedded in a site that performs a specific function.  Widgets are commonly used on WordPress sites.  Some functions are opt-in boxes, donation buttons, Facebook or Twitter buttons.

This is a short list of some popular social networking terms – the list grows daily – I hope you find it helpful as you navigate the various social media platforms.