General
Social media for beginners
Maybe you heard a TV presenter ask the audience at home to tweet their opinion, or you saw ‘#QandA’ running along the bottom of the screen during ABC’s Q&A show. Ever wondered what it all means?
Social media is now a key part of modern life. It’s become a way to stay in touch, share moments with friends and family, keep up to date on news and for general entertainment. But for anybody who lived in a time before social media, it may be hard to understand what all the fuss is about.
So let’s start from the very beginning, what exactly is social media? It’s all about sharing information, ideas, messages and things like photos and videos, online via your smartphone, tablet or computer. When you think of social media, think Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In this guide we take a brief look at the more popular social media websites, get to know what they’re about and who’s using them. We’ve also included a jargon buster – or glossary – in case you need any help with some of the terms commonly used in social media.
- What is Facebook?
- What is Instagram?
- What is Twitter?
- What is Pinterest?
- What is Snapchat?
- Glossary: social media terms
What is Facebook?
Thanks to its 2 billion+ monthly users worldwide, Facebook is the largest and most widely used social media site. In Australia alone, there are 16 million monthly active users and around 2.8 million of them are aged 55 and over.
Facebook app home screen (Facebook, 2020) Facebook provides a wonderful way to re-connect with old friends or relatives you may have lost touch with, or to keep up to date with pictures of your grandchildren near and far. You can send messages, share photos and videos, and join community groups with people who have similar interests.
Facebook initially began for personal use, but over the years it’s also become a way for businesses and organisations to promote their products or services. The more information you share on Facebook (for example, in your personal ‘profile’ or when you ‘like’ a page), the more likely you are to be targeted with ads or news reflecting your interests.
What is Instagram?
Instagram is best known for its polaroid-like square photos, as well as its editing tools and filters that can transform almost any picture into a magazine worthy shot.
Just like Facebook, Instagram is about ‘following’ people you may or may not know in person, but the emphasis is on photo and video sharing. On Instagram, you’re bound to see loads of ‘Instagram worthy’ shots of food, travel destinations, self-portraits (known as ‘selfies’), and much more.
Searching and exploring Instagram (Instagram, 2020) ‘Influencers’ are very active on Instagram. These are people who get paid for promoting products or services to their large numbers of followers. In 2019 Instagram caused uproar among its influencers when it decided to hide the number of ‘likes’ a photo or video receives. This means that only the person posting the picture or video can see the number of people who have liked it. Why? Instagram wants its users to, ‘focus on the photos and videos they share, not how many likes they get.’
What is Twitter?
If Instagram is all about photos and videos, then think of Twitter as being all about the conversation. People use Twitter to post short messages, called ‘tweets’, in 280 characters or less (a special skill in itself). Other people reply to these tweets to continue the discussion.
All Twitter accounts are public, so anything you share or tweet online can be viewed by anyone. Tweets are usually accompanied by a hashtag, a keyword or topic preceded by the hash symbol (#) to make it easy for others to search for, or to contribute to a conversation. A good example is the ABC’s Q&A show, which encourages its viewers to join in the conversation by posting messages on Twitter with the hashtag, #QandA.
ABC Q&A Twitter post (Twitter, 2020) Part of Twitter’s appeal is it allows people to follow public figures like celebrities and politicians who regularly post messages. Some of the most followed Twitter accounts in the world include former U.S. president Barack Obama, and musicians Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.
What is Pinterest?
Do you need inspiration for your next kitchen update, a holiday destination or a knockout chocolate cake recipe? This is where Pinterest comes in handy. You can use it to collect ideas on a range of topics like food, fashion, homewares, health and travel.
Tastemade Pinterest board (Pinterest, 2020) Type in any subject in the Pinterest search bar and you’ll most likely see hundreds of related images and articles. You can then save (or ‘pin’) the pictures you like to your ‘board’, which is like the online version of cutting out a picture from a magazine and gluing it in your scrapbook.
As with most social media sites, you can share your boards with friends or set them to private, so only you can see them.
What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a popular messaging app for teenagers and young people, but with a difference. You can send text, pictures or videos to friends, but they disappear shortly after the message has been opened.
Like other messaging apps you can send a message to a contact or start group chats, but with Snapchat there’s no trail of old pictures or messages to look back on. There’s also a popular ‘Lenses’ feature, which applies special effects over a photo so the person in it appears to have features like bunny’s ears or a dog’s face, or the scene in the picture shows things like rainbows.
Example of a Snapchat Lens The self-destructing messages appeal to a younger audience who want to live in the moment. They also mean people are more comfortable with what they share, knowing it can only be seen for a very short time. But it’s important to note that the message can be recorded – the person who receives it just needs to take a ‘screengrab’ or ‘screenshot’ of the picture before it disappears. If this happens, the sender is automatically notified that a screenshot has been taken.
More information
If you’d like to know more about the social media sites listed in this guide, or about other games and media apps you may have come across, the eSafety Commissioner’s website is a great place to start. You can learn about how these apps work and how to protect your information and report inappropriate content.