Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social network that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections. It also helps businesses and brands reach people.

Anyone can sign up for Facebook, and in fact, Facebook has 1.35 billion monthly users. The average American user spends more than 40 minutes per day on Facebook.

Facebook now hosts 42 million Pages and has more than 1.5 million total advertisers.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University.

The website’s membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but it later expanded further to include any university student. In late 2005, it was open to high school students, and finally, in 2006, Facebook became available to anyone aged 13 or more with a valid e-mail address.

Facebook was once only available through a computer; however, in 2006 applications became available that make Facebook obtainable through mobile phones, PDAs, iPods and other mp3 devices.

There are more than 945 million million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

PERSONAL You must have a Personal Profile for this class so that you can set up a

Page. You can set up a Personal Profile by accessing on the following link, www.facebook.com. Make sure no one else is logged into Facebook before setting up your account. Simply complete the information in the Sign Up form and click the green Sign Up button. It is important to be truthful when filling in the form, especially since you will be using this Personal Profile to manage your Page.

Facebook will ask you a series of questions. You may skip this step, but you are encouraged to provide information for all of the categories. This will help Facebook users find and identify you.

Facebook will ask you to provide a photo. You can upload a photo already on your computer, use a

webcam, or skip this step until you find a picture you like. The Facebook Profile Picture is displayed on

your Profile (and your Page) as a 160-pixel square, but must be uploaded at least 180 pixels by 180 pixels.

You can also upload a larger image (preferably in a multiple of 180, such as 360, 540 or 720) and Facebook

will resize it for you.

If you do not provide an image, you will get Facebook’s default figure.

Facebook will prompt you to add friends from your e-mail contacts. Feel free to do so. Facebook will send

you a confirmation e-mail to the account you provided. Once your account is confirmed, your Personal

Profile is ready to go. Just re-visit www.facebook.com and log in.

Facebook Icon

Clicking the Facebook icon will take you back to your News Feed.

News Feed

Your News Feed (the center column of your home page) is a constantly updating list of stories from people and Pages that you follow on Facebook. News Feed stories include status updates, photos, videos, links, app activity and likes.

Clicking on the thumbnail of your profile photo, which is featured in the upper left-hand corner of your homepage, will take you to your actual Timeline, where all your personal posts are published.

Search

This is a very important tool for beginners and newcomers to Facebook. You can quickly search for brands, organizations and friends via this text box.

Messages

Friend Requests

Click on the buddy icon to see a list of friends who want to connect with you. In addition, Facebook has added some friend suggestions to the list, people who Facebook thinks you will get along with or share mutual interests, under People You May Know. Facebook has various privacy settings. You can set your posts to friends only, you only or public.

The next icon is a quick link to your Messages. Here you will be able to quickly view any private messages a friend or group has sent you.

Notifications

Click on the globe icon to access your notifications. Facebook will automatically alert you when friends engage with your posts or there is recent activity in any groups you may have joined. You can turn off notifications for certain posts and groups or mark notifications as read. Simply hover over the upper right-hand corner of a specific notification box to open the menu(s).

Dropdown Menu

Posting

Facebook gives you all kinds of options to control what others see, like who can contact you and who can look you up. To access you privacy settings for your Facebook profile, click the Privacy Shortcuts icon next to Your Name link. It looks like a lock. I published a detailed blog post entitled Facebook Privacy Settings for Control Freaks, check it out if you want total control of your privacy settings. Note: There are no privacy settings for Facebook pages.

You can access a dropdown menu by clicking on the downward pointing arrow next to the Privacy Settings icon. From this menu, you can switch who you are using Facebook as, your personal profile or a Page you manage. You can also create and manage Pages and ads from this menu, view your activity log, adjust settings, log out, ask for help or reports a problem.

Privacy Settings

From your Timeline, you can post status updates, photos/videos or photo albums. Just click on the link of your choice, click inside the text and start typing. Make sure you are using Facebook as yourself when posting personally and as your Page when posting professionally.

PERSONALLY

Status Tab

From your Personal Profile, you can upload a photo, tag people, add what you are doing or feeling, change or add your location, set the date and time of your post and customize who can see your status updates all from your Status tab.

Life Event Tab

You can add life events to your Timeline from the Life Event Tab. Each category has a drop down menu of events, and each event has a dialogue box where you can upload photos and enter information.

The process is similar when posting personally or as your Page.

Facebook personal profiles are

flexible with lots of options not

covered here. Timelines and

News Feeds are constantly

changing.

Explore your personal profile.

Change privacy settings. Add a

life event. Have fun with it.

Stay on top of things by

interacting on Facebook often

and exploring settings and the

interface. Be curious and click

often.

Facebook is a powerful tool for

personal or professional use. It

can be used to reconnect with

old friends and meet new ones.

Consumers are turning to

Facebook when making

purchasing decisions and

seeking entertainment.

A recent survey found that 62%

of social media users think

Facebook is the most useful

social media site when it comes

to researching local or small

businesses before visiting them.

www.facebook.com

http://louisem.com/1726/best-facebook-photo-sizes-cover-profile-wall-photos

http://marketingland.com/facebook-millennials-go-shopping-turn-facebook-survey-95759

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/23/facebook-usage-time/

http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/01/29/facebook-passes-1-23-billion-monthly-active-users-945-million-mobile-users-757-million-daily-users/