Facebook Mentions: What They Are and Where You Find Them

Facebook has evolved substantially from the product it started out as many years ago. In the beginning, it functioned more like an online yearbook where a Harvard student could browse profiles of their classmates. It did not take long before it expanded to universities and colleges across the country and anyone with a school email address could sign up. Quickly, it went even further beyond that to open it up to anyone with an email address.

People could create their own profiles, create pages for their businesses, and track down long lost loved ones. Facebook has not been without controversy since its inception, and every time it undergoes a big change it has supporters and detractors. One of the tools quite well received by the public has been Facebook “mentions.”

What Is A Facebook Mention?

Mentioning a person or page on Facebook is a fun, social way to interact even further on the internet. A mention is the electronic way of tagging someone on Facebook, similar to a mention on Twitter, and by mentioning someone or some page it links to that person’s profile. Effectively what can be seen is a hyperlink to a person or page and anyone who is viewing your status can click on the hyperlink and be connected to the other profile or page. It is the Facebook way of sharing information with you, or of letting you know that someone is thinking of you.

Where to Find Facebook Mentions

Now that you know what Facebook mentions are, it is worth knowing how to figure out if you have been mentioned. There are a few different ways to go about this. The most common and easiest is probably looking up your notifications when logged on or checking the notifications icon on the Facebook app on your phone. Generally if someone mentions you, it will show up there. By adjusting your account settings, it is also possible to receive automatic email notifications if you are mentioned in someone’s Facebook post. Being mentioned by a friend or colleague in a status update is a fun and personal way to invite you to look at something they think you would find interesting.

However, what if you are looking for mentions of your page? Facebook unfortunately does not send automatic notifications to any page administrators, but there are still ways to find the mentions on Facebook. There is a marketing tool available to page administrators on Facebook that can help an administrator figure out whether their page has been mentioned or not.

The marketing tool is called “People Talking About This” and is a function of Facebook that allows a page administrator to find out that very information. It is a marketing tool provided by Facebook that permits page administrators to gather data on their page’s mentions. It even provides more in-depth market analysis by comparing data across time periods so that it is clear to the page administrator when their page has been particularly high profile or gotten lower than usual or higher than usual mentions. This same tool is publicly displayed on the page and allows users that are browsing to see if other people are mentioning your page, which can be an incentive for them to look at it.

Using Facebook Mentions to Increase Your Online Presence

Facebook mentions in and of themselves for the average user are just a fun way of keeping in touch with their friends and family. For the person or business looking to increase their online presence, however, Facebook mentions can be a powerful marketing mechanism to raise their online presence. By increasing your mentions on Facebook, your page is more likely to show up at the top of search results and have a higher number of “People Talking About This” notifications.

Importantly, Facebook mentions are a free way of getting more publicity and attention paid to your page. There are many ways to increase the number of Facebook mentions you get, and the first way to do so is by mentioning other people and pages. The extra step taken to reach out to other people helps establish an online community on Facebook, where other people and pages who have been mentioned by you are now interested in taking a look at your page. If they like it, they might even mention you in a Facebook post in return.

Even if only a few of them reply in a similar fashion to your Facebook mention, you have effectively promoted your page on a few other pages, which by definition increases the probability of someone viewing your page. Those other pages will inevitably have viewers and customers that you did not previously have access to, and those people are now interested in your profile because you were able to get another page to mention you.

Promoting across social media helps increase your profile as well, such as linking from Twitter or a blog post, but these are not the same as Facebook mentions and they do not have the same effect within Facebook as mentions do. Simply linking to your profile from an outside source means people who see that source might look at your profile. However, while you have still gotten some traffic to your page, it is not as efficient or effective as using Facebook mentions within Facebook itself.

Connect With Friends and Family

One of the more fun ways you can use a Facebook mention is to reach out to friends and family. It can be so simple as updating your status to reflect who you are with by mentioning them, and it then shows up on their profile for people to see as well. Just knowing that you took a moment to let your Facebook profile followers know that you are with someone you care about can be seen as a kind gesture.

It can also be a simple way to let someone you are friends with know that you have read or seen something that might be of interest to them. Coming across something on Facebook and sharing it with your friends and family is as simple as clicking on “share” and then mentioning them in the post. They will not only receive a notification that they have been mentioned in a post, but they will also be able to see it on their own profile and immediately be able to click on whatever it was being shared with them. Any article, photo, video, or other media source can be shared quickly and without having to worry about copying and pasting a link, or finding someone’s email address or phone number in your contacts section. Simply share and mention, and they have immediate access.

As you can see, there are a variety of uses for Facebook mentions and a lot of places to find them. Using the search bar, the marketing tools supplied by Facebook, and the notification alerts in your settings allows any user to easily be able to keep track of who is mentioning them and where those posts are. Facebook mentions are a valuable tool for any user to master.

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