By now, you’ve probably heard of the popular social media site, Facebook. It was designed by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in his college dorm room and has changed the game of communications throughout the world. If not, have no fear; I’ve compiled a guide with all you need to know about Facebook to get started.
Learn these basic terms and you will be a Facebook master in no time.
Profile-
To create an account on Facebook, first create a profile for yourself by adding in your name and some personal information. You can choose to upload a profile picture to help personalize your account.
Status/ Update/Post-
These terms are used interchangeably to describe what you share in the “What’s on your mind?” box. Any text, photo or video you post to Facebook can be called one of these terms.
The Wall-
Every profile has a “Wall,” this is where posts will appear after you type them into the “What’s on your mind?” box. Enter what you want to appear as your status, such as “Beautiful day in San Diego!” and press the “Share” button.
News Feed-
The News Feed aggregates your friend’s statuses and also the statuses of any Pages you have liked. The News Feed can be sorted by “Top Posts,” which will display the most popular posts, as well as “Most Recent,” which will display posts in chronological order.
Pages-
Facebook Pages are similar to a Facebook Profile, but are intended for companies, organizations, brands, local businesses, public figures, causes or a community. Facebook Pages have walls and can post updates, photos, links and video. Pages are also customizable and can be built out to act as mini-webpages, with games, shopping, forums and more.
Friends-
To find friends, use the search bar at the center top of the main page. Type in the person’s name and you should be able to find them in the search results. Click on the name of the person and the grey box that says “ +1 Add Friend.” This will send a request to the person and once they confirm you will officially be Facebook friends. Facebook also has the option of using your e-mail contacts to search for friends.
Likes-
One of Facebook’s main features is the ability to “Like” a post, photo, page or status. To like a post click on the blue “Like” button under the item you like. Posts with the most “Likes” and “Comments” will appear highest in the Top News section of your News Feed.
Comments-
The Comments function on Facebook allows users to write their own comments in response to other posts or photos. Just as the “Like” function posts with the most comments will appear higher on the Top News section in the News Feed.
Groups-
Groups can be created within Facebook and each one can have a specific privacy setting, either being only open for some to join or can be made public, so anyone can join. Groups can have their own walls with the capability to message, chat, share documents and schedule group events.
Messages-
Facebook has a feature similar to email, where users can send private direct messages to friends and other users depending on the person’s privacy settings.
Questions-
Questions is a relatively new feature for Facebook, allows users to ask their friends multiple choice questions.
Photos-
One of the most popular features of Facebook is the ability to create and share photo albums. Users can directly load pictures to their profiles or to pages and can “Tag” other users in the photos. By tagging someone in a photo it will show up on their page with links to the photo album.
There are plenty of other details when using Facebook and thankfully, Facebook provides lots of great resources and (of course) their own Facebook page with lots of helpful information on getting started, protecting your privacy and the latest updates.
