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Social Media for Personal Use

Tuesday 1st July 2014

+This Session

Introduction to Facebook for Personal Use

Introduction to Google+ for Personal Use

We’ll have a break at 11am, and wrap things up around 13:15 pm, to give us time to recap the session.

+What is Facebook?

Facebook is one of the biggest social networks in the world, and began on the college campuses of the US.

It differs from Twitter in that it allows you to ‘screen/filter ’ who can see your profile and content.

You can make all of your updates public, meaning that anyone can access your profile, or you can set your updates to ‘friends only’ so that anyone wishing to see them would need to be added as a friend by you.

However Facebook allows you to interact with people outside of your friends list through the use of Groups.

+Why use Facebook?

You can create photo albums and upload images, which users can comment on or ‘like’ and be tagged in.

You can add work colleagues, friends, family, or people you know from other interests.

Facebook’s friend system is primarily about keeping in touch with people you already know, rather than making new contacts, but you can still meet new people through groups.

Facebook Messenger is a powerful chat system.

There is also a vast array of games which can be good time-wasters! E.g. FarmVille and CandyCrush

+Why use Facebook?

Facebook Pages are a great way to find businesses or events in your local area.

It also means that you can subscribe to updates whenever Pages post new content.

There are also local groups dedicated to sharing interesting days out, or organising trips to exhibitions or the cinema.

You can connect with public figures that you like, who share useful content themselves, like Nigella Lawson or Stephen Fry

You can even use Facebook to search for jobs.

+Negative Facebook

Facebook isn’t all sweetness and light – as with Twitter, users can hide behind their keyboard to post catty, cyber bullying trolling comments.

The site can actually make people feel more lonely or isolated when they see updates of everything that other people are doing.

Facebook does change the goalposts fairly frequently, meaning that users have to change their settings whenever a major alteration is made.

You can’t control what your friends might share with others, so they may share photos you’d rather they didn’t.

Don’t post it you don’t want it shared !

+TASK

Create a new blog post and write a list of bullet points,

describing how you might personally use Facebook.

These lists will be different for everyone!

Please title this list “How might I use Facebook for personal use?”

Don’t publish just yet, as we’ll be adding to this post later!

+How should I use Facebook?

People join Facebook to connect to other people so; Share interesting links – include comments as to why you

think the link is worth visiting. Keep people up to date with your life – images are a great

way to capture interest and they show up well in the ‘timeline’.

If you discover a local band or a good local business, consider sharing a link to their page on your profile – they may offer you a discount, or other perks as a thank you.

Facebook is essentially an online conversation so remember to interact with other people – comment on their statuses and images too. The more you interact with a user, the more often they’ll appear in your newsfeed.

+Basic Jargon

Status – a text update.

‘Like’ – show your appreciation of an image, status or link.

Comment – post a reply.

Timeline – the list of posts that appears on your profile.

News feed – a list of updates from other users that appears on your main page.

+Getting Started

Go to http://www.facebook.com.

Fill in the boxes on the front page and click 'Create an account'.

If you already have a profile you're happy to use for this course then just log in.

+Step 1

Enter your email address to find any friends who already

use Facebook, or ‘Skip’

+Step 2

You can skip any of these steps at any

point.

+Step 3

You can skip any of these steps at any

point.

+Edit your profile

You can now use the Friend Finder to find friends, or edit your profile.

In the top righthand corner, under your name, click ‘Edit Profile’.

Spend some time editing this.

Remember to add a user photo and a cover picture.

+Edit your profile

The beauty of Facebook is its use of ‘networks’.

When you add things to your profile, it creates links to their pages if they have them, so you can see other people that are connected with them.

It also creates a ‘list’ for this Page so you can filter your news feed according to their updates.

+TASK

In the blog post you started earlier: copy and paste the link to your Facebook

profile.

Write a short list of keywords or interests you want to use to find people to connect with through groups.

Please title this list “Keywords I might use to find groups”.

+Now what?

You’ll get the most out of Facebook by adding other people – this allows you to see their updates, and they can then see yours.

Be aware that if you try to add someone you don’t know, and they click ‘I do not know this person’ on the invite, you may get blocked as a ‘spammer’.

You can list users as members of your family meaning you can quickly sort content by ‘family only’.

You can also choose these lists when posting a status so that only those users who are on your list will see it.

+Finding Contacts

Pages Type an interest or keyword into the search bar and it will

bring up a list of Pages or places. Click ‘Like’ if you want to subscribe to their updates.

Groups When using the search bar, make sure you choose ‘Groups’

from the left hand sidebar set of options to find groups with that keyword or interest.

If you’ve added people you already know through the Friend Finder, have a look at their friends lists and see if you have any mutual friends.

+Sending messages

There are three ways to connect with people.

The Wall : If a user has the ‘Wall’ facility enabled on their profile, you can post a status directly on this wall.

Tagging : You can ‘tag’ a user so that your status appears in their news feed – this is helpful if you are posting photos of lots of people from weddings etc. as your content then appears on their profile.

Messenger: You can also use Facebook Messenger or the chat window to conduct a private conversation with someone. You can message people you’re not friends with.

+Trending

Twitter started the idea of ‘trending’ topics, and Facebook has recently picked it up.

The top right hand corner of your main window will have a list of topics that are popular on Facebook at that moment.

Click on one to find out more.

+Security

Facebook is available as an app for smartphones and tablets, and it’s worth exploring their security features.

You can turn on two-step verification, which means a code is generated whenever you try to log in from a machine that you haven’t listed as being ‘safe’.

You can also view how many sessions are currently logged in, and you can get notifications whenever a log in is detected on a machine you haven’t used before.

+TASK

Using all of the information we’ve covered in the session so far, start conducting conversations with people that you find on Facebook.

Consider posting a status, or creating a photo album.

Post a link to one of your blog posts – take a screenshot of this and post this on your blog.

Join a group and begin posting, or start liking pages.

See if you can find any local businesses or events relevant to your interests.

+Welcome to Google + Google + offers a news feed of

stories, just like Facebook, and users can upload images and videos.

They can also post links, although G+ allows you to ‘filter’ your contacts through the use of circles, meaning that only those people you choose can see an update.

G+ also offers a chat facility through Google Hangouts, and the ‘Local’ function allows you to find recommended places near you.

+Why use Google +?

Google + offers you more control over your data, and who can see it, than the other social networks.

It also integrates very well with other Google products, and the app for the smartphone is very well-designed.

Fewer people use Google + than Facebook or Twitter but more professionals use it, so it’s easy to find good content that’s related to an area of interest.

It also doesn’t feature games so you won’t get the same number of game invites as you would on Facebook, and you don’t get lots of annoying adverts!

+Why use Google +? From 2012 to 2013, Google+ enjoyed massive growth, going

from 435 million users to 1.15 billion.

However the percentage of active users on a monthly basis has fallen from 51% to 32%.

To get the most out of G+, make sure you engage in communities, enjoy real-time interaction through Hangouts, engage with your network by commenting, sharing content and +1 ing posts.

In addition, a lot of people use Google+ on Fridays from 11 am to 2 pm so post then, and ask questions – you’ll get more interaction that way.

+Google +

If you already have a Google account for email or YouTube, then you already have a G+ account – you just need to activate it.

Go to https://plus.google.com/

Either sign in, or create a new account.

+Getting Set Up

If you already have an account, then enter your name, gender and birthday, and click ‘Upgrade’.

This should also apply if you don’t have an account.

+Getting Set Up

I already have a Gmail address so it has suggested things for me to follow.

+Getting Set Up

Now it wants me to upload a photo, add details of where I work, where I went to school, and where I live.

All of this information is to help people to find me and connect with me.

+Getting Set Up

Click on the Home button in the top left hand corner, and go down to Profile.

Click ‘Edit’ on each section to edit the information.

I’ve also added a cover photo, as well as information so that users know they’ve found the right ‘me’.

+Finding People

Go to ‘People’ in the dropdown list.

It will let you search for people according to the information you added to your profile.

If you have Gmail, it will also suggest users from your contacts list who also have G+ profiles.

You can also click on ‘Discover’ to have users suggested to you.

You might not have many users yet but you might find more by joining Communities.

+Communities & Pages

The Communities in G+ act like the groups in Facebook, and the Pages feature is also like that of Facebook.

You can browse through suggested communities, or search for one based on keywords. Consider your list of keywords you used on Facebook.

You can use Pages to promote your business etc. We’ll be looking at these next week during Social Media for Business Use.

+TASK

Spend some time editing your profile, and finding Communities you might like to join based on your interests.

Make sure you add your Google + profile address to your blog post.

List five communities you have joined on Google +, or five groups you have joined on Facebook.

Write a couple of reflective paragraphs on:

what you have learned today?.