What is Facebook

The purpose of Facebook

Facebook was initially designed as a platform for broadly defined communication between friends and family, but nowadays it can be used both for personal and business purpose allowing not only for interaction with your friends but also to customers and fans with organisations and public figures.

So, let's say, you want to check what's going on with a person you haven't seen for ages? Just log in to your Facebook account and check their timeline or write them a message. It's fast, it's efficient and allows you to keep track of your friends.

But why stop with your friends? Maybe you are starting a company or working for one? You can use Facebook to promote your company or product. Similar to creating your website, you can create a profile for your company on Facebook. This has many advantages. Firstly, you can learn about your clients, what kind of issues they have with your product, what they like, what they don't like about it. You can use this knowledge for improvement. Secondly, if someone follows your profile, you know they are already interested in whatever you're selling so you can easily make more personalised adverts targeting a specific group of people. In addition, all friends of your followers can see that they like your product or service and that is buzz marketing in action. Lastly, all these actions let you build long-lasting relationships with your clients.

Can I customize my profile?

The answer is yes, but...

Facebook allows you to customize your own page by adding a profile and background photos. You can build up your profile by adding personal information like name, birthday, place of birth, education and work information. You can decide which part of data you are going to share publicly and which will be available for your friends.

Now the "but" part – Facebook itself doesn't allow you to change the style, page colours or layout. If you want more advanced customization options, you have to download specific features from outside developers.

How can I connect with others?

There are a few options to find your friends - you can simply use the search bar, find them in your friend's contact list and Facebook can even suggest people you might know if you have mutual friends. When you find someone you know, you can invite them to your friend list. All users can talk to each other by messenger system, write posts on news feed so others can see them and comment on these posts. You can also comment, like and share posts that you find interesting or tag someone on photos or posts. Also, if your friends liked a company or an event, you will be informed about it.

Are there some useful tools I can use?

Facebook has many features that allow you to interact with others.

The main one is your friend list where you can add people you know or want to follow. You can divide your contacts into separate groups and, when you are writing a post, you can decide who will be able to see your post – everyone, one of the groups you created or only chosen people.

Do you see a person you know on a photo or maybe someone mentioned your friend in a post? You can tag him (or should I write "them") so everyone will know that he (or should I write "they") was mentioned in the post.

Have you found information that you find interesting? You can like it or share it so your friends could see it too.

What about etiquette?

To put it simply – don't be a jerk. Avoid inappropriate and offensive language. Hate speech and cyber-bullying aren't tolerated and Facebook can remove your posts if they include this kind of language and even ban your account if they find your behaviour inappropriate.

Mind what you are posting. Let's say that you decided to post something that you want only your friends to see, you can never be sure that it will stay that way. All it takes is one of them sharing your post and suddenly everyone can see it. There is an old saying – "what was once published on the Internet, stays there forever", so beware what you are posting.

Finally, You should ask for permission before you tag someone in a post – not everyone likes to be mentioned in this way.

#Facebook #Social #Media