Social Media 101

Discover the basics of social media and the many ways in which these tools help people connect. You’ll learn the difference between being a social media creator and a consumer, as well and the significance of memes, hashtags, lurkers, and influencers. You’ll begin the exploration to discover which social media sites might be most appropriate for your particular interests.

One of the fastest-growing platforms today, Instagram allows users to share photos and videos via a feed or story, and follow others doing the same thing. As more and more features have been added to support businesses over the years, it is now also a critical platform for business. Learn about the platform’s many levels of functionality, including its latest commercial features.

Facebook, the largest social network in the world, makes it easy to connect with friends, family, and colleagues by sharing text, photos, and multimedia content, including video chat and messaging. As you explore the platform’s features, you’ll learn about privacy and security; how to create short- and long-term content; and specific functionality for business, including in-depth analytics.

Twitter is a microblogging social network that allows users to post and interact with 280-character text messages, photos, or videos, all of which are called tweets. Unless you make your account private, all tweets are public domain and indexed by Google and other search engines. Learn about the power of threaded conversations, “What’s Happening,” and available analytics.

LinkedIn is a career- and industry-centric version of Facebook. LinkedIn users are looking to share industry expertise, network with colleagues, and build their professional brands. Learn about LinkedIn advanced features and best practices, the benefits of premium accounts, how to develop the most powerful profile, and ways to use LinkedIn in your job hunt or your search for new-hires.

Pinterest is a social media platform designed to enable discovery and saving of photos and videos on the internet. Essentially a graphics search engine, Pinterest content tends to be more evergreen than that of other platforms. Discover how to utilize pins, boards, and sections, all of which help you organize your visual material to share with others and collaborate on common interests.