18. Connecting with Facebook and Other Social Media
In this chapter, you find out how to use Facebook and other social networks to connect with friends and family.
Sharing with Friends and Family on Facebook
Pinning Items of Interest to Pinterest
Keeping Up to Date with Twitter
When you want to keep track of what friends and family are up to and keep them up to date on your activities, Facebook can be a great way to do it. Facebook is a social network, which is a website that lets you easily share your activities with people you know. Write one post, and it’s seen by hundreds of your online “friends.” It’s the easiest way I know to connect with almost everyone I know.
Facebook isn’t the only social network on the Internet, however. Other social media, such as Pinterest and Twitter, target particular types of users. You might find yourself using social media other than Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family.
Sharing with Friends and Family on Facebook
A social network is a website community that enables users to connect with and share their thoughts and activities with one another. Think of it as an online network of friends and family, including former schoolmates, coworkers, and neighbors.
The largest and most popular social network today is Facebook, with more than 2.5 billion active users worldwide each month. Although Facebook started life as a social network for college students, it has since expanded its membership lists, and it is now the preferred social network for more mature users.
Signing Up for Facebook
To use Facebook, you have to sign up for an account and enter some personal information. Use your web browser to go to www.facebook.com, click Create a New Account, and follow the onscreen instructions. It’s free to sign up for and use Facebook
Discover New—and Old—Friends on Facebook
To connect with someone on Facebook, you must become mutual friends. A Facebook friend can be a real friend, or a family member, colleague, acquaintance—you name it. When you add someone to your Facebook friends list, he sees everything you post—and you see everything he posts.
The easiest way to find friends on Facebook is to search for a particular person.
Click the Search icon on the tool bar. This expands the icon into a Search box.
Enter the person’s name into the Search box and then press Enter.
On the search results page, click the People option in the Filters pane.
Fine-tune your search by using the controls in the Filters pane. For example, you can filter the results by city, education (schools attended), and work.
If your friend is listed, click the Add Friend button to send that person a friend request.
Friend Requests
Facebook doesn’t automatically add a person to your friends list. Instead, that person receives an invitation to be your friend to accept or reject. To accept or reject any friend requests you’ve received, click the Friend Request button on the Facebook toolbar. (And don’t worry; if you reject a request, that person won’t be notified.)
Post a Status Update
To let your family and friends know what you’ve been up to, you need to post what Facebook calls a status update. Your status updates are broadcast to people on your friends list via the News Feed on their home pages. A basic status update is text only, but you can also include photos, videos, and links to other web pages in your posts.
Click Home on the Facebook toolbar to return to your home page.
Click within the Create Post (“What’s on your mind?”) box near the top of the page. The box expands to offer more options.
Type within the box to enter your message.
If you’re with someone else and want to mention them in the post, click Tag Friends and enter that person’s name.
Include a picture or video with your post by clicking Photo/Video to display the Open dialog box; then select the photos or videos to include.
Adjust who can read this post by clicking the Sharing To button and making a selection.
Add a location or place to your post by clicking Check In and making a selection.
Post your update by clicking the Post button.
Who Sees Your Posts?
You can opt to make any post Public (meaning anyone can read it), visible only to your Friends, or to select other people and groups.
Find Out What Your Friends Are Up To
Your home page on Facebook displays a News Feed of status updates made by people on your friends list. The newest and/or most popular posts are at the top; scroll down through the list to read older posts.
Click Home on the Facebook toolbar to return to your home page.
Your friends’ posts are displayed in the News Feed in the middle of the page. To leave your own comments about a post, click Comment, enter your text into the resulting text box, and then click Post.
To “like” a post, mouse over Like and select from one of the available emojis.
If a post includes a link to another web page, that link appears beneath the post, along with a brief description of the page. Click the link to open the other page in your web browser.
If a post includes one or more photos, click the photo to view it in a larger onscreen lightbox.
If a post includes a video, playback should start automatically. (If not, click the Play button.) Click the volume control to unmute the sound.
Pinning Items of Interest to Pinterest
Facebook isn’t the only social network that might be of interest to you. Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) is a social network with particular appeal to middle-aged and older women—although there is a growing number of male users, too.
Unlike Facebook, which lets you post text-based status updates, Pinterest is all about images. The site consists of a collection of virtual online “boards” that people use to share pictures they find interesting. Users save or “pin” photos and other images to their personal boards, and then they share their pins with online friends.
You can pin images of anything—clothing, furniture, recipes, do-it-yourself projects, and the like. Your Pinterest friends can then “repin” your images to their boards—and on and on.
Joining Pinterest
Like other social media sites, Pinterest is free to join and use. You can join with your email address or by using your Facebook account login.
Create a New Board
Pinterest lets you create any number of boards, each dedicated to specific topics. If you’re into quilting, you can create a Quilting board; if you’re into radio-controlled airplanes, you can create an RC Airplanes board with pictures of your favorite craft.
From the top-right corner of the Pinterest home page (www.pinterest.com), click your picture or profile icon to display your profile page.
Click the + icon at the top of the page.
Click Create Board to display the Create Board panel.
Enter the name for this board into the Name box.
Click the Create button.
Find and Save Interesting Items
Some people say that Pinterest is a little like a refrigerator covered with magnets holding up tons of photos and drawings. You can find lots of interesting items pinned from other users—and then save them to your personal boards.
Enter the name of something you’re interested in into the Search box at the top of any Pinterest page and then press Enter. Pinterest displays pins that match your query.
Mouse over the item you want to save to display the control panel.
If you want to save to the suggested board, click Save.
Save to a different board by clicking the down arrow to display the board panel.
Mouse over the board to which you want to save and click Save.
Save an Item from a Web Page
Pinning images from a web page is as easy as copying and pasting the page’s web address.
From Pinterest’s main page, click the + button in the lower-right corner.
Click Create a Pin.
Click Save from Site.
Enter the web address (URL) of the page you want to pin into the Enter Website box, and then press Enter.
Pinterest displays all images found on the selected web page. Click to select the image(s) you want to pin.
Click the Add to Pin button.
Enter a title for this pin into the Add Your Title field.
Enter a description for this pin into the Tell Everyone What Your Pin Is About field.
Click the Select down arrow to display the board panel.
Mouse over the board to which you want to pin this image and click Save. The item is now pinned to that board.
Pin It Button
Pinning a page is even easier if the page displays its own Pin It button. Just click the button, select an image from the page, and you’re good to go.
Keeping Up to Date with Twitter
Twitter is like Facebook but without the group social interaction. The focus is on relatively short (280-character) messages called tweets, which are shared with a user’s followers. In addition to text, a tweet can include photos, videos, and links to other websites.
Twitter is immensely popular with news outlets, celebrities, and politicians, many of whom use Twitter to communicate with their large numbers of followers. Most individuals use Twitter to follow others’ tweets and retweet those posts they find most interesting.
Signing Up
Signing up for Twitter is free and easy. Go to www.twitter.com, click the Sign Up button, and follow the onscreen instructions to create a new account.
Search for Users to Follow
Tweets from users you follow appear in your Home timeline. You can follow any Twitter user you want. (A user can be either an individual, a company, or some other organization.)
Unlike Facebook, where friends and connections have to be mutually approved, you don’t have to be approved to view another user’s tweets. So if you want to follow Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) or CNN (@CNN) or just your neighbor down the street, you can do so without having to ask permission.
The easiest way to find users to follow is to search for them.
@name
Users on Twitter are identified by a username preceded by an ampersand (@). So, for example, my username is molehillgroup, which translates into my Twitter “handle” of @molehillgroup.
Click within the search box and enter the name of the person or organization you want to follow.
Twitter displays a list of matching members. Click a name to go to that user’s profile page.
Click Follow to follow this user.
View Tweets
A tweet is a post to the Twitter service. Tweets from users you follow are displayed in Twitter’s Home timeline.
Click the Home icon to view the tweets in your timeline.
Tweets are listed in reverse chronological order, with the newest tweets at the top. The name of the tweeter and how long ago the tweet was made are listed at the top of each tweet. Scroll down the page to view older tweets.
Click a user’s name or @name within the tweet to view the profile summary for a given person or organization.
Click the Like (heart) icon to “like” a tweet.
Click the Reply icon to reply to a tweet.
To view other tweets on a highlighted topic, click the hashtag (#topic) within the tweet. (Not all tweets include hashtags.)
To view a web page linked to within a tweet, click the embedded URL.
Photos are embedded within tweets but at a limited size. To view the full picture, click it.
Post a Tweet
Posting a message to Twitter is called tweeting. The posts you make are called tweets.
From anywhere on the Twitter website, click the floating Tweet button. This displays the Compose New Tweet panel.
Type your message into the What’s Happening? box. Remember that a tweet can be no more than 280 characters in length.
To add a picture or video to your tweet, click the Picture icon.
When you’re done, click the Tweet button.
Retweet Another Tweet
Sometimes you’ll see a tweet from some person or organization in your feed that you’d like to share with your friends. You do this by retweeting the original tweet. (The new tweet you send is called a retweet.)
From the Twitter home page, click the Retweet icon for the tweet you want to share.
Click Retweet to retweet without additional comment. Or…
Click Retweet with Comment to add a comment.
Enter your comments (optional) into the Add a Comment box.
Click the Retweet button.
