How to Use
Facebook for retired activists
Firstly I
would like to say that although Facebook was set up to be a fun way of
communicating with friends, this is not what Facebook does now. Businesses all use it as a way of marketing
and PR. Treat online at Facebook as a
job. Commit a couple of hours a week and don’t let it take over.
1.
Set
up your Facebook Account – you can use any title, your name helps people
recognise you if they haven’t seen you for a while and you can have more than
one or two pages. So I have my personal account, my business page and an
activist page.
2.
Try
not to put in a lot of personal information about yourself. Minimum is fine.
3.
People
can contact you through messenger, located in the top right hand corner. Download the app on your phone as it is a
very useful tool too.
4.
Top
right hand corner.
First the title of you page- this is your timeline if you click on it.
Second - Home, these are your posts and posts other people(your friends) send
you, then messages and notifications this tells you if your post has been shared
5.
Take
a piece of paper . Make a list of all the organisations and people you have
known in your life, especially younger people, children you have known when you
were younger etc. Then in the left hand
top corner there is a search facility- search all those people and invite them
to be your friend or join/like/or follow organisations that you have a
connection to or would like a connection to.
6.
When
you receive a post and it might be that you think it is very useful, then there
is no point just reading it and doing nothing.
You can delete it, you can like it – this means that you will keep in touch with your friend otherwise after a while Facebook stops sending you their posts, or you can share it, which means that it will go directly to the
place that you share it to. The words Like and Share are under the post. I try to like and Share all the posts that I agree with or interest me.To delete – there are three little dots in
the top right hand corner of the post. ( It was ages before I realised that
this was not just for decoration) When
you see these three dots it means that there is a drop down menu. Click on them and you will be given a variety
of options. This is very useful if you
want to unfollow someone who is a nuisance or offensive.
Of course other people can do this to you too so include funny posts,
informative posts and treat your posts as a journalist might, engaging the
reader.
7.
These three dots are computer language they
appear on other things too, if you see them click on them to explore your
options. Eg the very top bar of Facebook
8.
You
receive a post and it has -The comment box- This is very useful if you cannot
be friends with someone and you are following an organisation. If, for instance you have a URL (www…..) of
an interesting article that adds to the discussion put it in the comment box or
you can also create a new post. But if
it is in the comment box other interested people may like what you have said
and request to be your friend.- requests are also found in the top right hand
corner of your home Facebook page. The more friends you have the better because
if they then either like or share your post what it contains then is sent on exponentially.
9.
Create
a new post by entering in something where it says ‘what is on your mind’. It could be a film
from Youtube, or an article or something you want to pass comment about but
always include the visual stimuli because people respond more to a visual and (
if it has a cat in it that helps! Ha ha)
When you create a new post you can tag someone.
You can only tag someone who is already a friend, but if you know that
the friend agrees with your point of view then it will alert them with an email
to look at your post and share or like it. Or if your family members will like it too tag them.
Try not to bang on with one theme and be kind to your friends sharing their interests too. I have some really good Facebook friends, I have never met them but I know them moderately well and this is a very gratifying thing,
Try not to bang on with one theme and be kind to your friends sharing their interests too. I have some really good Facebook friends, I have never met them but I know them moderately well and this is a very gratifying thing,
This will take you a bit of time – next step do the same thing with
twitter but this is a harder thing to master , Twitter is a harder programme, and
then you can link the two and when you post to Facebook it will automatically
go to twitter – therefore it helps to use the same name for both.
10 That brings me to Blogger.
This is very useful too, this is where you can put your own personal
spin on the world, it is free and you don’t need a website. It is run by
Google, it is called Blogger. Easy peasy to do. But you need a gmail email
address to do it,so set one up and use it for your activism so not to confuse
it with your personal stuff. Or your business.
That brings me to passwords, I use a different password for all these business/activist
accounts. And I keep my personal stuff elsewhere. I use my gmail address as the sign in name
and then password is the same for all of
them. Open up gmail and then the other google applications will come up
automatically. Keep your sign in and passwords to hand other wise it will be
very frustrating.
Blogger, When you make a blog – I have several- you are asked to save as
a draft and then publish. At the draft stage blogger has labels not tags and
this is how people find your blog so for
my craft blog, I would use the term “how to” this is a very good word on google
to use ,it is a standard phrase used by searchers. So I would put as a label
How to make a father’s day card for instance. Another standard word is “find”.
Then publish don’t forget photos
in the blog and you will see at the bottom of the post view blog and share. If you click share it goes onto Google- Great
news people can find you, and you can earn money too but only pence I’m afraid
in my case.
When you 2view2 the blog at the bottom of your post there are mechanisms
to post directly onto – you guessed it- Facebook and you can go into your
blogger account and share on Facebook again and again whenever eyou feel like
it and this cuts out some of the work.
Short blog posts work very well.
Setting up a gmail email address will also give you access to a Youtube account. That brings me to photos and videos. Take as many and as often as you can. If you
have a smart phone and all your google accounts are set up you can upload
directly from your phone.
I use a iphone because at 72 I know these things are child play to the
younger generation and that iphones are for older people and children because
they are the simplest to use. I am all
for simplifying my life.
I could go on to say how to make a stopframe video for Youtube, which I
did here.
Commerce or Conscience? https://youtu.be/ca1zILXit8g
But this is quite another thing for another time. Again it is quite easy
when you know how.
