I have written many articles on Facebook in the past, with many guides to personalize your profile, to search for friends on Facebook and to regulate your privacy by hiding part of the information. However, there are still many people who Facebook has not understood what it is for, who see this website more as a stuff for children, a "Big Brother" site where everyone can be observed; in two words, just a waste of time. Although these flaws can be shareable in some ways, it's all about how Facebook is used .
For those who, inspired by the movie " The Social Network ", want to join Facebook and join more than a billion already registered and active users in the largest community that the web has ever seen, here is the guide to enter Facebook, subscribe and create a new profile after registering the account .
READ ALSO: Why we use Facebook and we are still registered
1) To enter Facebook and register, simply open the Facebook.com site which is in Italian and, therefore, absolutely clear and understandable. Facebook is always free and will never be paid.
Using a fake name on Facebook can simply serve to create a parallel virtual life, far from the real one. This thing is absolutely not the goal of this social network that was created to put real people in communication, therefore, all those who signed up with fake and invented names, would do better to use other similar sites like Twitter. Even the date of birth must be made true to take advantage of those Facebook applications, such as horoscopes and birthday reports, which are based on this date.
Then enter real name and surname, email address or mobile number (real and to be confirmed) and then date of birth and male, female or other gender. After pressing the Subscribe button, you will receive an email to the email address or an SMS to the number indicated with a link to click or a code to enter to confirm identity.
After confirming the email address or mobile number, Facebook recommends that you find friends by email address. This, which will be the funniest part, is actually the last thing you should do when creating an account. It is useless to send friend requests if the profile is white and empty with no information that can identify the person. On Facebook there are many namesakes and many fake profiles so, with an unfilled profile, it also becomes difficult to be accepted as a friend.
In the next step, Facebook asks to fill in the profile information. I suggest skipping this step too, at least for now.
2) From now on, however, you can start creating your Facebook account by inserting a photograph of yourself.
Facebook is called Face book for a reason: because before adding friends, it is important that everyone has a profile picture of themselves in order to be recognized. Roughly speaking, 99% of subscribers have a profile picture. I recommend putting your own photo, not that of the dog, the girl or the girl with the dog, because Facebook is absolutely useless and boring if you are not recognizable. Furthermore, after adding the image of your profile, uploading it from your computer, you enable the Photos tab, where you can then create photo albums.
Keep in mind that the profile photo, as well as the optional cover photo, is always publicly visible to everyone.
3) Adequately change the privacy settings
This is the most difficult part of Facebook because there are many options and settings to configure to decide how to be seen by others and how to be searched and found. You must then click on the Facebook site on the arrow down at the top right, then go to the Settings menu -> Privacy .
Read Facebook's updated privacy guide in another post.
4) Now is the right time to fill in your profile information .
From the main profile page, click on the Info tab, select Edit and fill in the fields giving information about your life, current and past. Alternatively, you can click here and fill in the various sections of the profile.
If the privacy settings have been carefully configured, you should not be afraid of writing real information about yourself because they will be visible only to whoever you want. The section on " Education and work " allows you to find old school friends and work colleagues while " Interests and preferences " can be useful, during normal activities, to meet new people with the same passions (personally I have not written anything here ).
5) Set a username
One setting that many Facebook subscribers often forget, both new and old, is to customize the internet address of their profile page . Going to Settings> General there is the username . This name changes the internet address, the URL of your profile to something like, for example, www.facebook.com/pomhey . My advice is to use the real name, perhaps with the formula name.surname. Facebook profiles are almost online identity cards and each user's name becomes almost a trademark, unique and cannot be replicated by anyone.
7) Find friends
After the profile is almost completely filled and after the privacy settings have been correctly set, it is time to use the social network for its real purpose: to find your friends and add them . It is likely that, during the initial configuration, by already filling in some fields related to school and work, Facebook suggests some people to add as friends. Friends can be searched from the Facebook Home search field but, to do it first, especially if you have just signed up, it is better to leave Facebook the task of sending friend requests based on the address book of your email provider.
From the " Find friends " page, Facebook is authorized to access the online address book of Gmail, Yahoo mail, Skype and many other online services.
In another article I wrote how to find friends and new contacts on Facebook .
8) The last important thing to do is to create friend lists . Since on Facebook, you can add hundreds of contacts going forward, you should organize them into lists so then, in the privacy settings, you can decide who to show what .
Now the Facebook experience should go on smoothly, in a fun way and, why not, also in a productive way. You can install applications (paying attention to possible viruses), you can exchange private messages, make new friends, meet new people, chat and so on.
In the basic guide on how to use Facebook, the basic instructions of the most used social network in the world.
