Basics of facebook

Editor's Notes

• #3: From Wikipedia: Facebook is a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better. Facebook has “pages” for business. You have to have a “person” account. I set one up for Charles Hackley so other people in the library could update things without going through my own facebook profile. You can have more than one “administrator” for a fan page, so staff with individual accounts can be made administrators to help encourage them to post. You can also set up group pages that people can join to discuss things. Facebook help is under Account. Facebook is always coming out with new functions and changes to existing functions. The newest one is Facebook “email”, which just came out on Nov 16.
• #4: You can very easily upload pictures to Facebook so your friends and family can see them. You can email from within facebook. Your profile can be as detailed as you want if you want to share your interests. You can join groups to be part of a discussion, or become a fan of a business so you can keep up with new things they are doing.
• #5: Facebook Profile What: A Facebook Profile is meant for individuals only, according to Facebook’s Terms of Service. Why: If you are a person and want to join Facebook, set up a Profile. How: With Facebook Profiles, you can connect with others as Friends. You can communicate with them directly through their Facebook Inbox. You can see their status updates in your News Feed if you so choose, and you can share your status updates with all or some of your friends. And now, you can also tag certain friends in your personal status updates. Caveats & quirks: Facebook threatens to go through and clear out all profiles where it feels that a non-human entity is being represented — such as a company or organization — or even someone whose name is deemed to be fake. Facebook has made some mistakes cleaning house in the past, but my advice is that you shouldn’t set up a Profile for your company or nonprofit — or even for a fictional persona — because you could lose all of your friend connections at any moment by doing so. From Webworker Daily, Aliza Sherman, Jan 22, 2010
• #6: Facebook Page What: To build a fan base on Facebook, you can set up a Page. Pages can be for individuals, such as authors or celebrities, or for non-human entities such as products, companies, organizations and campaigns. Why: If you are looking to promote something, a Page is the best solution. That’s because that’s what Facebook intends Pages to be used for, and also because Pages are the only part of Facebook that is fully viewable to the general public who are not logged into the site. How: People connect with Pages by becoming Fans. On Pages, you can communicate with your Fans via status updates, but your updates no longer automatically appear in their main News Feed like they used to – they only appear if your fans comment or “like” your posts occasionally--otherwise they must click on your Page to see your updates. You can also send an update to fans, but note that they won’t get it in their Facebook Inbox as a message, as you might think. Instead, it goes to their Inbox Updates, which is a separate section; Fans have to know to click on “Updates” on the left side of their Inbox to see them. As admin to a Page, you can tag Fans in status updates, but only if they are also personal Friends of yours. Caveats & quirks: If you set up your Page a while ago, you may have erroneously set up a Facebook account or Profile for your company and then used that to set up your company Page. This is technically wrong, and could cause problems in the future, so make sure to grant admin privileges to your personal Profile account so that you can maintain control over the Page. If you set up your Page a while ago and selected the wrong category (because Facebook changed categories offered at one point), you cannot now go back and choose a better category. Instead of deleting a Page that isn’t quite right format-wise, you can now enhance your Page with FBML to make up for any features you might be missing. From Webworker Daily, Aliza Sherman, Jan 22, 2010
• #7: Facebook Group What: A Facebook Group used to be the only place to really build a community on Facebook. However, now Groups look very similar to Pages, which look very similar to Profiles. Still, Groups are spaces on Facebook where deeper discussions are expected, whereas Pages and Profiles tend to elicit shorter comments. Why: If building a community and engaging in more in-depth discussions are your goals, then Groups are more effective than Pages. Page administrators are anonymous while the admins of Groups are published publicly for all to see. How: People connect to Groups by becoming Members. Unlike Pages, Groups have a feature where you can message Members and that message goes straight into everyone’s Facebook Inbox as a message. I’m sure Facebook has a reason for not allowing this kind of access to Pages (controlling how much brands can invade our private messaging spaces, perhaps). Caveats & quirks: I wouldn’t advise a company or nonprofit setting up a Group unless they are prepared to engage in an ongoing dialogue, and are ready for all of the issues and work associated with online community building. Groups, when used properly, are far more engagement intensive than Pages. Being able to utilize the direct messaging feature on Groups may seem like a good idea, but sending too many promotional messages to a Group can result in Facebook disabling your account. From WebWorker Daily, Aliza Sherman, Jan 22, 2010.
• #9: [click to show blanks and sign up]
• #10: This is the home page for Charles Hackley. It is what we see when we log in to the account. [click] It lists the status updates that Charles’s friends have made. [click]On the right are suggestions for friends, ads, and links for finding friends. [click]On the left are other parts of facebook, such as links where we can go to see friends, messages, events, and the inbox. [click]Click on Account to get to the settings link, a very important area for changing safety settings.
• #11: This is what Charles’ friends see when they click on his page. Charles has a wall [click], where he and his friends can post things, [click]info is where Charles can share information about himself, and photos is where Charles’ photos are kept. The wall is a public place…whatever is written on the wall can be seen by anyone who can see the profile. To keep things private, use the inbox to send and receive messages.
• #12: [click]Click on the Info tab [click]Look for the pencil icon, clicking on this allows you to add or change information. You can put as little or as much in the info area as you feel comfortable with.
• #13: Be careful out there! Be sure to look at your privacy settings before adding friends Click on account, then on account and privacy settings to check your privacy levels. Facebook has historically changed the privacy settings on a regular basis, so it is a good idea to check these occasionally.
• #14: From your profile page, click on the [click]photo tab to see your photos. Click on [click] create album to upload photos, or open an album to add more photos to it.
• #15: [click] click on add more photos to add to an album, then [click] click on select photos.
• #16: From your home page, [click] click on Photos, [click] then My Uploads. [click] [click] Click on Upload photos. A dialog box will pop up so that you can navigate to where your photo is. Choose your photo, and while it is uploading you can create an album. When you are done you can add more photos, or create the album.
• #17: Once you’ve uploaded your photos you can [click] publish them to your profile, [click] [click] add captions, [click] [click]assign one as the album cover, or move the photo to a different album. [click] [click] Be sure to save changes when you're done.
• #18: Once you’ve found a friend, you can ask them to be friends with you. They have to approve your “friend request”. When people find you, you will receive a “friend request” which you can allow or deny.
• #19: One way to get friends is to look at who your friends are friends with. Many people think it is a good idea to only be friends with people you actually know. You can group your friends and have different levels of privacy controls for different groups. Your friends show up on your profile Your friends can see your other friends Be careful accepting friend invitations. Send a personal message with a friend request.
• #20: This is where you put your “status update”, or whatever is on your mind. Some people post what they are doing, some what they are feeling, and some post random quotes, thoughts, non sequiturs…you name it, someone has posted it. You can also [click]attach photos, [click]videos, [click]events, and [click]links.
• #21: Facebook has lots of games and applications. You can choose to participate or to not participate. Some applications can access your information, so be careful when agreeing to participate in them.
• #22: Having a party? Invite your friends through facebook Click on Events
• #23: Click on Create Event, and follow the directions.
• #24: You can share interesting things that you find on the web Look for something like this [click] on web pages you want to share…or [click] click on the attach link button on your wall.
• #25: You can also send text messages to your wall with your cell phone, or use apps for smart phones. Third party (Twitter, blogs, etc) applications can also be set to post to your wall.
• #26: Pages are for businesses or groups that want to have a presence on Facebook. People can “like” your page and see your updates. You can post events, workshops, press releases, blog entries, pictures, etc. on your page. Most of what you can do on your fan page is the same as on your personal page. You add photos, events, wall posts, etc. using the same tools. Your wall posts may or may not show up on your friends’ pages, depending on how active they are with your page. You don’t want to post things too often, but you also want people to remember you, so some have suggested that posting between 3 and 5 times a week is a good middle ground. It is also a good idea to post at different times of the day.
• #27: Click [click] on “Create a page for a celebrity, band, or business”. This will take you to …
• #28: Create a new facebook page… [click] Fill in the blanks…
• #29: If you don’t have a facebook account you will be asked to create one. If you have one, you will have to sign in at this point.
• #30: The Fan page is very similar to a personal page. There is the [click] wall, [click] info, [click]events, [click]photos, etc.
• #31: Getting to your fan page. Click on account, then manage pages.
• #32: Look for the Edit Page button to add information, make changes, and find “insights”, which are statistics.
• #33: This is the applications page. [click] Some applications, such as photos are automatically associated with your page. You can add more, though. At the bottom is a link to browse for applications. A very handy one is Facebook Markup Language. It lets you have an area where you can put basic HTML. On the left of this page you can see the other links to working with your page.
• #34: Search for “Static FMBL” [click] Click on “Add to my page”
• #35: After you add it to your page, go to your Facebook homepage and click Edit Page. Scroll down until you see the added Static FBML. Click on Edit FBML and you will see two boxes appear, one is for the title and the other is for the HTML code.
• #36: You can “tag” people and pages by typing the @ symbol before typing the name. The person has to be a friend, and the page has to be one that you’ve “liked”. It is a good way to get some posts on your Page’s wall. From your personal account, start a status update and include @your business page’s name, and it will show up on the business page.
• #37: I was able to attach a slideshow to this [click] wall post and have it show up on Charles’ page and the Library’s page by using the @ tag. It is very useful if you can’t post something directly to the business page.