Chris Pichereau - A Simple Guide to Facebook and Social Networking

by
Chris Pichereau

LUMINIS BOOKS
Published by Luminis Books
1950 East Greyhound Pass, #18, PMB 280,
Carmel, Indiana, 46033, U.S.A.
Copyright Luminis Books, 2011

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

The Publisher and Author make no warranties or representations regarding the accuracy or
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Neither the Publisher nor Author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.

Cover art courtesy of Shutterstock.

Cover art direction and design by Luminis Books.

ISBN-10: 1-935462-41-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-935462-41-5
Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

give you

Just the Facts

Get up to speed on Facebookfast!

Simple Guides: get you started quickly.

No extra clutter, no extra reading.

Learn how to set up your facebook account, make a great profile page that tells your family and friends all about you, post all the photos, videos, and links you want, and protect your personal information.

Find out about setting up business pages and other fan pages.

Learn the nuances of finding Facebook friendsold and newand understand exactly what others can and cannot see on your profile page, wall, messages, and news feed.

Get started with Facebook games and other community building tools.

And dont waste any more time with updates you dont really care to seeset up Facebook the way you want, and start having fun!

Id like to thank Debbie Abshier of Abshier House for her coordination of resources to get this book published; Kelly Henthorne for her thorough and accurate copy editing of the book; and last, but not least, Chris Katsaropoulos for his vision in creating the Simple Guide series and handling of final production and distribution.

Started in 2004, Facebook is a privately owned social network service. A social network is loosely defined as a website that brings people together around a common interest, which includes family, friends, businesses, and hobbies. Facebook is a market leader in social networking, and as of 2011 has more than 600 million users. This amazing number of world-wide subscribers is just one of the many reasons that this tool is great for anyone who wants to get into the social networking arena for personal or professional use.

If you are wondering whether Facebook is here to stay, the answer is a resounding Yes. So much so, that the film, The Social Network, a 2010 documentary-style movie about the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and the products rise to fame, was nominated for six Golden Globe awards and was awarded four, including Best Dramatic Picture. In addition, Facebook was recently valued at approximately $50 billion.

Many people think of Facebook and other social networking tools as being used only by teenagers and celebrities. This couldnt be further from the truth. The website www.istrategylabs.com has been tracking Facebook demographics, and they note that the largest demographic of Facebook users is from 3554 years of age with a significant growth in 2010 in users greater than age 55.

With friends and families living so far away, many people are connecting on Facebook so they regularly and easily can communicate current happenings in their lives. For example, through the use of a smartphone, parents can take a picture or shoot a video of a child taking his first step. They can immediately uploaded the event to Facebook, and grandparents living on the other side of the country can share in the moment.

Figure 1-1: A Basic Facebook Page

As we all know, teens are a difficult group to connect to, and this is particularly true for family members living far away. Imagine being able to hear some great news about your grandchild, niece, or nephew and being able to quickly and easily recognize his or her achievement with a posting on his or her Wall. If a more discreet approach is desired, you can send a Facebook private message.

Reasons to use Facebook are limitless. This Simple Guide focuses on the areas that are most commonly used and is designed to get you quickly up and running. Here are the top 10 reasons to use Facebook:

1. One central location to access and share everything you choose to in your personal life or business

2. 600 million potential friendsgrowing daily

3. Keeping in touch with friends and family

4. Linking up with old colleagues and schoolmates

5. Sharing videos and photos

6. Sending private e-mails to friends and family

7. Planning and managing events

8. Connecting with individuals around the world with a common interest

9. Playing games

10. Its FREE!

In addition to using Facebook for personal reasons, it is also a widely used platform for marketing and selling business products and services. Using Facebook for professional reasons is very similar to using it for personal use. A customer base is built into the 600 million subscribers of Facebook, and those people are very likely to sign up as friends or fans of your professional page since they are already familiar with the Facebook environment and have very likely already become friends or fans of other businesses.

A Facebook presence for your business allows you to display current business status information as well as any photos, videos, articles, or blogs. The posted status information displays on what is known as the Facebook Wall and shows up not only on your Wall, but also on the Wall of all of your friends and fans. This is an invaluable way to keep your business in front of your customers at all times.

As an example, if you were a local restaurant owner and you had a Facebook page for your business, you could post daily meal specials; these would appear on the Wall of your fans, enticing them to come to your restaurant for lunch or dinner. If you were the owner of a clothing store and were running a 20-percent off sale on all seasonal items and wanted to get the word out to a large number of people, Facebook would be a way to do that. If you were opening a new store or providing a new service and you wanted to get the word out to a large number of people, having a Facebook page with friends and fans would be a great way to accomplish this.

The opportunities for marketing and selling products through Facebook are limited only by ones own imagination.

Its important to note that games are used and played widely through Facebook. However, unless you are particularly interested in playing games, it is completely optional. Many people join Facebook just for the games and enjoy playing them and making friends around the world who also play. Literally thousands of games are available to play through Facebook; here are just some of the many games that people play and use to connect to one another: