A Beginner's Guide to Facebook

What is Facebook? If you already use Facebook it is easy to forget what it was like before joining and how long it took to become familiar with the service. We can be harshly reminded of this when Facebook updates it's features and we are left wondering how to find things again. According to Wikipedia, Facebook is an online social networking service. Its name stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some American university administrations to help students get to know each other. So then, let's begin.

Anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address can join Facebook and over a billion users worldwide already have. Creating an account only takes a few minutes of your time. Using your browser navigate to Facebook.com. Under the words Sign Up enter your personal information and desired password. You can always edit this in settings later if you want to remove your birthday from what other people can view. After you have entered your information click Sign Up and you have a Facebook account.

You can choose to find friends who you are already connected to via email or who share your previous education or workplaces or simply skip this step. The next step is to upload a photo to use as your profile picture and confirm your email address. Then you are ready to search for and add your friends, find groups to join or pages to like that you are interested in. You can private message people or post directly on a friend's Timeline/Wall. You will receive notifications if anyone contacts you or requests you as a friend. It's best to only accept friend requests from people you know or trust.
If you require further help their is an excellent free tutorial with videos by GCFLearnFree.org. that I highly recommend. The most important things to remember are:

Choose a strong and preferably random password.

Avoid using the word "password" or obvious number combinations such as 12345. Passwords provide the first line of defense against unauthorized access to your computer. The stronger your password, the more protected your computer will be from hackers and malicious software. You should make sure you have strong passwords for all accounts on your computer as well as Facebook.

Edit your privacy settings. 

You'll need to decide how much you want to share on Facebook. If you just keep up with family and friends, you might prefer to share updates only with that close circle of people. This free video gives you all the additional help you will need to make sure your privacy settings are set to your personal requirements rather than Facebook's public default setting. For your own safety and protection it is important to consider who can see your posts and photos.

 

Understanding the Timeline.

The Timeline is your Facebook profile. It’s called a timeline because you can include information, important milestones and memories spanning your entire life. It's up to you, how much you want to reveal to your friends and followers. For more information you can click on the Facebook Help center or go to the Glossary of Terms.

News Feed.

Once you’ve logged into Facebook, the first thing you'll see is the News Feed. There you’ll view friend's status updates, new photos, links to articles and so on. Think of it like the front page of a newspaper where you can choose to view stories that are most recent or in order of importance determined by an algorithm. Simply click the "Sort" option at the top of your feed to determine the order of posts. To return to the News Feed after looking at other features simply click Home.

Status Update.

A status update is anything important to you at a particular moment in time that you deem shareable with Facebook friends. It's the equivalent of composing a new tweet on Twitter but without a limit to the number of characters you are allowed to use.

The Like and Share Buttons.

The “Like” button communicates your support of activities, brands, articles and products to fellow users.  When you click the Like button, the content also appears in the News Feed of your friends. It's a way to give positive feedback and connect. You can also "Like" Facebook pages which will enable their posts to show up in your Newsfeed. When you share a post it is added to your timeline and shows up in your friends Newsfeed for them to read.

So there you go, that's a basic lesson on using Facebook. There are more features to discover as you get to know the service such as Apps, Games, Tagging and Chat, even Poking! or you can just keep it simple. If you feel the need for more reassurance their is a great article specifically for the older generation joining Facebook by Julie Masis of The Boston Globe here and don't forget when you are busy catching up with your News Feed or playing Facebook games to search for the Social Media Against Crime page and your local group!

A Beginner's Guide to Twitter.

What is Twitter? When you first use Twitter it can seem unfathomable. Links and hashtags can look like gobbledegook. Yet very quickly you realise it really is quite simple. The Twitter home page explains it best:
  
"Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

The main difference between Twitter and Facebook is you can only enter 140 characters at a time. This means that you must post very short, to the point messages. Another difference is the ability to connect with a greater number of people. Even the Royal Family are on Twitter.

You don't need to know people to follow them, just be interested in what they have to say. If they follow you back you will be able to Direct Message (private message) them, even if they are a celebrity. They may well never see it amongst their thousands of messages, or just disregard it as spam, but in theory you could send a tweet and directly connect to anybody, anywhere in the world and they will instantly receive a notification on their phone or computer.

So, how to get started, it takes less than 60 seconds to sign up:

1. Set up your account.

Go to Twitter. Enter your name, email, and a password. If you don't have an email we recommend typing Hotmail or Gmail into your internet search engine. Click Sign up. You will now be asked to select a username. This is the name by which you will be known on Twitter which will be seen by other users with @ symbol preceding it. If you aren't happy with your username you can change it later.

What name should you use? You can use your real name if it’s available, or a version of it if not, or you can make up a name, it's up to you. Now click on the Create my account button. That’s it. You are now officially a member of the Twitter community. Congratulations!.

2. Twitter Teacher.

Twitter will assist you in getting started. It will explain what a tweet is and give you the opportunity to “follow” a few friends, popular people, or brands if you wish. Twitter will also give you a chance to see if some of your friends are on Twitter by checking your online address book.

3. Adjust your Settings.

Make sure you are on your Twitter home page. Click on the Settings link. You should be on the Account tab. Set the time zone. If you don't want to be inundated with emails you can also adjust this in Email notifications. 

Do not check “Protect my updates” unless you only want those whom you approve to be able to get your updates. If you check this, it will seriously limit the fun of Twitter as it restricts who is able to read your tweets and interact with you. Make whatever other changes you want, then click the Save button.

4. Creating a Profile.

If you don't upload your own profile picture Twitter will give you an image of an egg. It's important to avoid this, as eggs are often viewed as spammers and other users will ignore you. It does not have to be an image of yourself. You can upload whatever image you want but it should reflect your personality. Remember the image used will be square and their is a maximum upload size, so you may have to re-size your image to meet this requirement.

Don't be an egg.

You can also add a Header photo, which serves as a background to your profile pic. If you want to further personalise your account click Design to add a background/wallpaper.
Next enter the rest of your information, including your location, website or blog (if any), and a brief bio. This, too, is important to keep you from getting flagged as a possible spammer. Your bio can either be serious or fun, but it must be brief—no more than 160 characters. When you are finished, click the Save button.

5. Follow People. 

You can search for family and friends or people who share a common interest or location. Simply go to their profile and click on the follow button. There are follow limits, but unless you follow more than 2000 people without anyone following you back or more than a 1000 people in one day you won't have a problem. This is just how Twitter limits spammers who use the service purely for marketing purposes. If someone follows you, there's no requirement to follow them back. If someone is tweeting too much and clogging your feed, feel free to unfollow them immediately. There is even a block option if required.

6. Twitter Terms and Commands.

Using twitter is like having a conversation. Everyone who follows you can hear what you have to say. If you want to tweet or reply to a specific person the tweet should begin with their username that starts with an @ symbol. Everyone who is also following that user as well as you will see the tweet. (Those who are not following both will not see the tweet.) Usernames are also clickable links that will take you to the user's profile.

If you want to send a private message send a Direct Message to people who follow you. although be aware that many people ignore "DM"s as they can be used to send spam or links that send you to a fake page and spread viruses. If you do click on a link that is a virus by mistake, go to Settings and change your password. You can also favorite tweets you want to bookmark to read later and press the retweet button if you want to share a tweet with your followers. Retweeting is like quoting someone or citing a source. To find out more check out the Glossary.

7. Tweet.

Compose a new tweet and start twittering. All your followers can see your tweets in their Twitter Feed (like the Timeline on Facebook). You can share your thoughts, news, information, jokes or photos. You can even never use it and just receive tweets from a local Social Media Against Crime account and other people you've followed. If there isn't a local account for S.M.A.C. you will now know how easy it is to set up a Twitter for your area and start following people in your location.

If you add a hashtag (# symbol in front of a word e.g. #SMAC) anyone who searches for that hashtag can find your tweet whether they follow you or not. Hashtags can trend, this means lots of people are involved in the same discussion and tweeting about the same subject. Don't be scared to tweet to people. Twitter is very open and promotes talk. Mentions and Interactions are where you will find tweets directed to you, and notifications of new followers, favorites and retweets.

If you have any problems you can find answers to almost every Twitter question in the Twitter Help Center. Just be yourself and get involved with the Twitter community. Don't forget to follow us @SMACRipleyDerby!. We look forward to tweeting you.