How to Use Facebook: A Beginner's Primer

Facebook is a near-ubiquitous tool for connecting to friends, old classmates, family, or that guy you met once at a conference, and knowing how to use Facebook is a step in staying in touch with geographically disparate connections. Social-networking sites tend to come and go, but over the years, while the likes of MySpace and Friendster have faded, Facebook has shown its staying power. Where it was once a service run out of a dorm room open only to Harvard students, the social network is now a publicly traded company with nearly a billion users.

Let's say you've just signed up for Facebook, or already have an account but are stymied, buried in a sea of game invites. How do you best use the platform without letting Facebook take over your life?

Status Updates

When you first open up Facebook.com, you arrive at what's called your news feed: status updates of those you've connected with on Facebook, any pages you've "liked," and an occasional sponsored content.

To add your own, find the status bar at the top of the news feed. Here, you can provide text updates in your life or insert a link (links will automatically generate previews of the web page). To draw the attention of a friend, begin to type his or her name, and when it appears in a drop-down menu, click on it. If this doesn't work right away, try typing an @ symbol before the person's name. This will tag that person in your post and send an alert to his or her account.

Similarly, you can add your own photos and video from here and tag people in much the same way. Click on the person in the photo with the plus sign to tag, click the camera to add a photo, or click the location button to add a location. You can also click on the smiley face to add a mood.

Sharing and Tagging Photos

To tag someone in a photo you have posted, click on the Tag Photo button, then click on the face in the photo. Begin typing his or her name when the box appears. If there are multiple people, click other faces and repeat these steps. When done, hit Done Tagging. Add a Description enables you to caption a photo, while Add Location will identify your vacation destination for curious family members.

Note the bottom set of menu options: Like, Comment, Hide Post, Share, and Edit. (Edit will only appear on your photos). "Like" is a way to appreciate a post without a comment and have that appreciation be known. "Comment" is just that ? adding a comment. You can tag people in your comments much in the same way as above. "Share" enables you to take someone else's post and share it with your friends on your news feed, while still crediting the original poster.

"Hide" is an important feature when you're not interested in receiving updates or friends' comments about a post, but you don't want to stop being Facebook friends with them?for instance, when an unexpected political debate brings out the worst in your cousin's friend. Mouse over the top right corner of a post. When an arrow appears click on it, then click Hide. You'll no longer receive updates about that post.

Privacy

One important part of knowing how to use Facebook is knowing how to use Facebook's privacy settings. Find your privacy settings in the padlock icon at the top right of the screen.

The padlock will give you Privacy Shortcuts. Here you can choose who can see your activity by selecting Who Can See My Stuff. A recommended setting is to allow only friends to view your posts. You can also choose who is allowed to contact you under the next menu bar?by selecting a filtered inbox, you'll receive only messages from friends and not from your friends' friends or complete strangers. You can also choose who can ask to be your friend, with the options of Everyone or just Friends of Friends. And you can choose to block users who have been sending you spam messages or otherwise harassing you.

Under the padlock, a menu will drop-down called Privacy Settings. You may want to take additional steps here. For instance, you can review posts that you're tagged in or filter previous posts. You can limit whether your account will come up in search-engine results in searches on your name, or you can block people from looking you up via your email address.

These are just the basics of how to use Facebook. There's plenty more to learn about applications, integration with mobile devices and apps, and other features.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/how-to-use-facebook-a-beginners-primer-15512364?src=rss

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