Today I'm going to show you some of the features of
Facebook. It really is a great way to keep connected with people you know, & even meet some people you don't - altho' I don't have to tell you to be careful with the later!
I'll go through some of the privacy settings later - it really is as secure as anything on the web but as with anything online: if you'd hate to have someone read what you write someday; don't write it. Nothing online is 100% full-proof secure.
And on with the tutorial!
Click photos to make them larger & readable - they will open in a new window. :)
After signing up and all that, the page above should be what you see only with your info, of course. The 1st thing you can do: fill out your info {pick & choose what you want to fill in} & add friends. {See G below}
A - The NEWS FEED section is where you end up after logging in. This may or may not be where you want to be. I rarely stay on this part of the page. It annoys me b/c it shows you EVERYTHING your FBFriends do. When they join another page or friend a person it tells you & I usually don't care what they do. Now, on occasion, I'll see that someone has become a fan of the "Be Nice to People" fan page {more on fan pages later}, or something that I might want to also be a fan of so it's not all bad but I usually don't stay here.
B - But since we are here there are 2 options in which to view this section: Top News or Most Recent. Top News will show you "news" {news = status updates that your friends have sent out.} that is from your FBFriends Facebook thinks you'd be most interested in seeing based on comments you've made. If you commented on a lot of posts made by JimmyWhoVille then his posts will surely show up in Top News. While 'Most Recent' shows you posts in chronological order which is usually what I would rather see.
C - Home / Profile / Account = The home page is my screen shot above. Shows you what all your friends are doing. It's your Facebook HomeBase. Profile is your page - your info/personality/stuff. If a FBFriend were to click on your name {ie: from a post you made} this is what they would see. If a stranger searched for you they would only see what you allowed them to see based on your privacy settings {more on that later}. So what you see while logged in is in all likelyhood NOT what a stranger would see. So don't panic. Account has more options under the word {click or hoover over it} for seeing your settings and logging out etc.
D - Another link to get to your Profile page.
E - Friends is another way to view what your FBFriends are doing. More on that further down.
F - Requests being made of you. You can see who may want to be your friend as well as Fan Pages that have been suggested {that you may or may not like} by your FBFriends. This section will also contain things that your FBFriends may send you; gifts, tokens, parts used to play games. You can ignore, block, or say no to any of these things easily. Just open the requests section {'View All' to the right of the word REQUESTS} and deal with them at your leisure.
G - You can use the search at the top to find people that you know. Facebook will also take the info that you entered {where you work, school etc. if you entered it} & suggest friends for you b/c they are helpful like that. You don't have to friend anyone that they suggest and if you get tired of seeing the same faces staring at you just click the X to the right of the faces/info and a new face will appear if there is one in the system that they think you might like. Or just ignore that section all together, which is what I usually do.
WRITE WHATEVER HERE - where you can put in whatever you wish... How much you love your coffee/dog/significant other/the weather, or something important that you are doing. Want to aim your words at a specific person? Write this in that space:
@Person's Name then write your message. {that will alert that person that he/she has been mentioned in a post} AND if you want it to go to ONLY that person, just below where you just wrote is a lock - click on the triangle next to it and you'll have choices about who will be able to see that particular post. Choose 'customize' &, in the case of who can view it, choose 'specific person' & write in the person you wish only to see it {it will show you choices based on your input - you can type in more than one person}, or choose people you don't wish to be able to view it. Then click 'save', and then 'share' when you done writing.
H - This, of course, is all your FBFriends & what they are doing that is so important that they just must let all their FBFriends know. lol. It goes without saying {unless you perhaps have a tight knit group and no strangers in your FBFriends list} never say when you will be out of town & the like.
Okay, the
FRIENDS screen. Click on the Friends link mentioned in
E in the section above & this is what you will see. Of course if you've not yet added friends it will be kinda blank but... once you add friends this is what you should have. It will also show you if you have any friend requests & you can choose to add them or not {I don't have any right now so it's not showing them}. You can send anyone requesting your friendship a message saying "do I know you?" if you aren't sure. This center section is just showing what has changed for your FBFriends lately. If they changed their avatar/profile photo for instance, or contact/relationship info. Which I usually don't care about so... moving on...
a - Message link is on all the screens and tells you if someone has sent you a PM {private message}. Just click on it and it will show you something that sorta looks like email and you can reply to them. This is what many are using instead of email. Of course no one can PM you unless they are your FBFriend. If someone has sent out a message and copied it to several people, in your reply make sure it's not going to everyone that it was originally copied to, unless that's okay with you. It's pretty apparent when this happens. People generally don't send forwards/spam & the like on Facebook so you are pretty safe from that.
b - Status Updates - another way to view what your FBFriends have posted. The great thing about this link is that it doesn't include info about who your FBFriends have joined/friended with. The bad thing is it doesn't include any photos that they may have attached to their posts. However, you can go to see photos that your FBFriends have posted by clicking the PHOTOS link above the Status Update link.
c - Friends & Family - when you add someone as a friend you can put them in a category like well, Friends & Family, Co-workers, People from School, etc. You can see here I have a "group" called Raw under F&Fam & if I were to click 'more' there would be more "groups" that I have created. When I click a category then only posts from my FBFriends in the specifically named groups show up for me. Since I have eleventy-million FBFriends this is a handy way for me to see posts from people I actually know. :) If you don't have a ton of FBFriends then it's not so much an issue to categorize people.
d - To see photos that people have posted as mentioned above.
e - Chat. By default this is set to be ON. It will let you know when your FBFriends are online & if you want to chat w/ them you can do that. Or click it and turn it off & they won't know when you are online & you won't know when they are.
Note: This view is read-only & you can't post your own status update from here. You'll have to go up to Status Updates & click on 'Update Status' or go back to the Home page/Profile page to do that.
And my last screen shot for now {whew!}
Welcome to
your my
Profile! I hardly come here b/c really everything
you I need is on the HOME page. But, if you do go to your Profile here are a few tips.
z - You can post a status here - and it will go out to your FBFriends same as if you'd posted it from the Home page. The same options for customizing {the lock pic} are here as are on your Home page.
y - Use these options for attaching things to your post/status update. These are also on your Home page.
x - Click on these options & it will show you posts that your FBFriends have posted directly to your Wall {which is what the page you are looking at is called}. These also show up on your Home page. I clicked on 'Just Friends' & saw a post from someone that I'd not seen before... but I have a lot of 'friends' & it's impossible for me to read everything that is posted - you probably won't miss such posts if you don't have as many FBFriends.
v - Every post, whether it's on your Profile or Home page, has these options under it. If someone posts a photo/video/link there will usually be an additional link SHARE that you can click on to add whatever was posted to your own status stream & share with your FBFriends/readers.
HEART - to make a heart just do shift+, and a 3 {shift+comma which makes the 'less than' character, and 3 smooshed together} - when it posts these characters will be replaced w/ the cute heart right side up. :)
That's it for now. Whew that was long! :)
PAX,
