Using Tags in Your Status Updates and Comments

Many people use the tagging feature on Facebook to tag their friends in status updates, comments or photos. It’s also pretty common for people to tag Facebook pages that the “like” in updates and as of last week you can now tag Facebook Pages in your photos as well.  Friends and Facebook Pages are not all that you can tag in a post or comment though,

You can also tag the following in a post or comment:

• Your confirmed friends
• Members of a group you are posting or commenting in
• Events you are attending
• Groups to which you belong
• Applications you’ve used

When Facebook first launched the tagging feature, you would type in the “@” symbol and the first few letters of the name of the friend or the page you were tagging and Facebook would offer an autofill drop down box to choose the friend or page you might be looking for. In recent weeks, Facebook revised the tagging feature so that you no longer need to use the “@” symbol when tagging a friend (so far you still need to do it for everything else). You can just start typing in the name of a friend and Facebook will automatically show the drop down box of options. You can then select the person’s name and Facebook will auto fill the name in your update or comment. You can now also edit the name of the person in the update and still have the tag remain in the update. This means you can now tag friends in your updates without having to include their whole name (and sometimes their maiden or middle) name as a part of your update.

Why Use Facebook’s Tagging Feature?

The tagging feature can be a good way to let someone know that you are acknowledging them in your update either to give them props for something or to give them credit. Also, since Facebook is as social network, it can be a good way to bring some social into your updates. For example, if you tag a couple of friends in an update, it can be a good way to start conversation.

Tagging Facebook pages, events or groups in an update are a good way to share with your friends about Pages you like, events you are attending or groups you enjoy, especially if you are interested in helping raise the visibility of those particular Facebook items. And, don’t forget that often tagging a person, page, event, or group will mean that our update will also show on that friend’s wall, the Facebook page, the event page or the Wall of the group which further raises your visibility (this depends on how a friend’s privacy settings or a Page’s wall options are set as to whether your update will show.)

Facebook Pages can also tag people, other pages and events in their updates. The reasons for using tagging in a Facebook Page update are similar to why you would tag someone in a personal update. However, since Page is usually used for professional or business purposes, then you want to use a little extra precaution to make sure you are not using tagging in a spammy way or in a manner that might construed only as a means to promote your Page.

UPDATE: Facebook recently made a change in Pages ability to tag other pages. When using Facebook as the Page, you are no longer able to tag another Page. If you use Facebook in Profile mode (as yourself, but still as an admin for the page,) then you can tag another Facebook Page from your Page.

Tags: Facebook tagging, Facebook tagging feature, tag comments, tag facebook pages, tag status update

Category: Facebook How-To, Facebook Tips