Author: Mikal E. Bellicove and Joe Kraynak
Publisher: Alpha Publishing – 285
Book Review by Sonu Chandiram
Facebook is an amazing social media platform that has taken the world by storm. It has over 800 million users and growing. People new to it just cannot believe how easy it is to find long lost relatives and friends and reconnect with them. It is wonderful to see and keep in touch with them.
With Facebook, you can add friends to your “collection” in rapid-fire fashion. You can also either become pleasantly surprised or bewildered by the number and variety of “add friend” requests you get. If you have plenty of time, you can go on adding more and more people, knowing that as your number of Facebook friends grows, there will be even more friend requests, more postings on your site, more Facebook emails, more requests to add your birth date to their calendar, which will generate even more “happy birthday” greetings via email and postings. I believe in T. Harv Eker’s saying: “whatever you focus on, expands.” What do you wan to focus on?
It can all be overwhelming. It is up to you to decide how much or how little time you are going to spend on Facebook. For the undisciplined, Facebook is like a candy store and you are the kid who gets all excited about all the goodies that are available to you in plain sight or thrust at you by (sales?) people you know and very often, even by people you’ve never seen before. So, you add them anyway just because….(?)
I suppose a Facebook user should not decide how many hours he or she is going to spend on it, but rather decide with a clear head what they are going to use Facebook for. For me it is simply a cost (time) versus benefit (money) analysis when it comes to spending time on this social medium during working hours and oftentimes also, during non-working times.
The authors of this guide to Facebook are, needless to say, highly expert, familiar and knowledgeable with all that Facebook offers, including of course, features that even frequent users do not know about. They write that you do not need to read their book cover to cover – you choose what aspects of this social media platform you want to discover and learn to use, and what you do not.
Mikal E. Bellicove has written several books relating to the Internet and is a columnist for the business magazine Entrepreneur. He writes blogs on developing content for websites and messaging/positioning yourself on the Internet as an individual or as part of a business.
Joe Kraynak has written numerous books, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Computer Basics (5th edition), Using and Upgrading PCs and Google: Top 100 Simplified Tricks. He has taught hundreds of thousands of people on computers and software.
There is so much information about Facebook in this book and whether you are new to it or are already familiar with its many features, there is so much more to learn to accomplish whatever goals and purposes you have set for yourself once you get a better handle on it.
To give you a short overview, the book first shows you the basics of Facebook such as setting up (and later, “fleshing out”) your personal profile (or business profile if you want to set up a site for your business on it), adjusting your account settings, and looking at and deciding on your privacy options.
It shows you in subsequent chapters all the ways of finding and adding relatives, former or current classmates and friends and expanding your reach by joining networks of people on other Facebook sites. It shows you how to broadcast whatever you want through your “wall” on your site and / or through mass emailing to selected people and groups of people.
Want to share photos and images and videos? You can either post for all (or whoever you chose) to see or email them selectively to those you choose to share with. You can also chat with whomever you want (individuals and groups) in real time.
You can join as many or as few groups you want on Facebook, but remember, the more you join, the more “stuff” you will get – who did what, when, where and how. Choosing what posts and messages you do not want to receive is just as important as what you do want, otherwise you will be wasting your time receiving and reading messages and viewing photos you do not care for.
Facebook also has calendars you can use to post events. Organizing a party or networking event and do not want to call a hundred or more people? Just post it on your calendar. You will be surprised that people you think may join you will not, whereas people you least expect to attend reply in the affirmative.
You can also play various games with your friends or strangers to have fun and if you have the spare time. Facebook can keep you glued to the computer for countless hours and it is up to you what you do or do not do with it. Do not blame Facebook for taking away your time – you have freedom of choice.
If you have a smart phone, there is much you can do to stay in touch with your friends on Facebook. Again, you must ask yourself how much you want or need to receive messages from Facebook or post them on it through your handheld device.
Lastly, you can do much to publicize, promote and market your products and develop new customers, revenues and profits by creating and developing a business site on Facebook. Post pictures and descriptions of your goods, get people to say good things about your goods and develop a positive buzz and good will about your business. The possibilities for profit are literally limitless.
Mikal and Joe have put a lot of hard work in developing this comprehensive and insightful guide on Facebook and we commend them on this unique achievement.
