Getting Started with Facebook: What to Know

Understanding Facebook's Basic Features and Account Setup

Facebook is a social media platform where millions of people connect with friends, family, and communities worldwide. Founded in 2004, it has grown to serve over 3 billion monthly active users as of 2024. The platform allows you to create a personal profile, share updates, photos, and videos, and interact with others through comments and messages.

Learn How to Make Fabric Flowers →

To begin using Facebook, you need to create an account. You'll visit facebook.com and provide basic information including your name, email address or phone number, birth date, and gender. Facebook requires users to be at least 13 years old. The registration process is free and typically takes just a few minutes. After entering your information, you'll receive a confirmation through email or text message to verify your account.

Once your account is created, you can customize your profile by adding a profile picture, cover photo, and biographical information. Your profile serves as your identity on the platform. You can choose what information to display publicly and what to keep private through Facebook's privacy settings. These settings control who can see your posts, contact you, and view your profile details.

Facebook offers different ways to use the platform depending on your needs. You can create a personal profile for connecting with individuals, set up a business page to represent a company or organization, create a community group for people with shared interests, or establish a creator account if you plan to produce content. Each option has different features and purposes.

Practical takeaway: Before creating your account, decide whether you want a personal profile or a business page. If you're representing an organization, a business page is more appropriate than a personal profile. Consider what information you're comfortable sharing publicly, as this shapes your privacy settings from the start.

How Privacy Settings Work on Facebook

Privacy on Facebook is one of the most important things to understand before posting content. Facebook provides multiple layers of privacy controls that determine who can see your information, posts, and activities. These controls let you decide whether content is visible to everyone (public), only friends, specific groups, or just yourself.

Get Your Free Orange Julius Recipe Guide →

When you post something on Facebook, you can choose the audience for that specific post. A small icon near the "Post" button shows your current audience setting. Common options include "Public" (anyone on or off Facebook can see it), "Friends" (only your Facebook friends), "Friends except" (everyone except specific people), and "Only me" (private). You can change these settings for each post individually, or set a default privacy level for all future posts.

Facebook's general privacy settings control broader aspects of your account. These include who can contact you via message, who can see your friend list, who can see your email address or phone number, and who can tag you in photos. You can find these settings in the Settings & Privacy menu under "Settings." Each option has multiple choices ranging from fully public to restricted to only close friends.

Another important privacy feature is the ability to control who can search for you on Facebook. You can limit search results so your profile only appears to friends or not at all. You can also block specific users entirely, preventing them from viewing your profile, sending messages, or interacting with your posts. Additionally, Facebook allows you to manage which apps and websites have access to your account information.

It's worth noting that even with privacy settings set to friends-only, anything you share could potentially be screenshot or shared by others. Privacy settings control who can see your content through Facebook itself, but they don't prevent someone from saving or sharing what they see. Think carefully before posting anything you wouldn't want shared more widely.

Practical takeaway: Review your privacy settings regularly, especially after major Facebook updates. Start by checking who can contact you, who can see your posts by default, and who can search for your profile. Consider setting your default post audience to "Friends" rather than "Public" if you prefer a more limited viewership for your content.

Building Your Network and Connecting with Others

The core of Facebook is connecting with people you know and care about. Building your network involves sending friend requests, accepting requests from others, and managing your connections. When you join Facebook, you can start by searching for people you know using their name, email address, or phone number. Once you find someone, you can send them a friend request.

Check Your Washington Driver's License Status Guide →

A friend request is a message asking someone to connect with you on Facebook. The person you've requested can accept the request, decline it, or ignore it. Once someone accepts your friend request, you become "friends" on Facebook. This means you can see each other's posts (depending on privacy settings), message each other, and interact with each other's content. The average Facebook user has around 338 friends, though this number varies widely.

Beyond individual friendships, Facebook offers groups and communities where people with shared interests can gather. Groups might focus on hobbies, local neighborhoods, professional industries, parenting, health conditions, or countless other topics. Some groups are public (anyone can join and see posts), while others are private (you need approval to join). Being part of relevant groups lets you discuss topics of interest, ask questions, and connect with people who share your passions.

Facebook also has a "Follow" feature separate from friending. Following someone means you see their public posts in your feed without being friends. This is useful for following public figures, brands, news organizations, or others whose content interests you. Unlike friendship, following is one-directional—you don't need their permission to follow them.

When connecting with others, Facebook recommends people based on mutual friends, shared interests, workplace, school, and location. These suggestions appear in various places including your feed and dedicated "People You May Know" sections. You're never forced to connect with suggested people; these are simply recommendations based on available information.

Practical takeaway: When starting out, search for people you genuinely know—friends, family, former classmates, coworkers. Once you've connected with a core network, explore groups related to your interests or local area. This creates a more meaningful and relevant feed. Be thoughtful about accepting friend requests from people you don't recognize, as this affects what personal information they can see.

Using the News Feed and Engaging with Content

Your News Feed is what appears when you log into Facebook. It's a personalized stream of posts, photos, videos, and updates from people and pages you follow. As of recent updates, the average person sees only a fraction of posts from their friends—Facebook's algorithm prioritizes content it thinks you're most likely to engage with based on your past behavior, relationships, and interests.

Get Your Free AARP Disney Discounts Guide →

The News Feed includes several types of content. Posts from friends might be text updates, photos, videos, or links. Pages you follow share promotional content, news, or information about their organizations. Advertisements appear throughout the feed, as Facebook generates revenue by showing targeted ads. Sponsored content from pages appears alongside organic posts. You can control some of what appears in your feed through your settings and preferences.

Engaging with content on Facebook involves several actions. "Liking" a post means clicking the thumbs-up icon, which tells Facebook you enjoyed it and helps the algorithm understand your preferences. Comments let you respond to posts with text, and you can have conversations with others in the comment section. Sharing a post means reposting it to your own profile so your friends see it. You can also use reactions—different emotional responses like love, haha, wow, sad, or angry—instead of just liking something.

Messages on Facebook are private communications between individuals or groups. You can message a friend directly, and they'll receive a notification. Group messages let you communicate with multiple people at once. Facebook Messenger is the dedicated app and platform for messaging, though you can also message from the main Facebook site. Messages appear in your inbox, and you can search past conversations.

The algorithm that determines what appears in your feed considers several factors: how frequently you interact with someone or a page, how much engagement a post receives overall, how recent the post is, and what type of content you typically engage with. If you want to see more posts from specific friends or pages, you can prioritize them by marking them as "See First" in your preferences.

Practical takeaway: Spend time in the first week observing your feed and understanding what types of content appear. Like and comment on posts from people whose updates you enjoy—this trains the algorithm to show you more relevant content. Mute accounts that post too frequently, unlike pages that don't interest you, and adjust your preferences so your feed reflects your actual interests rather than just what Facebook thinks you should see.

Creating and Sharing Your Own Content