Set Up An Account & Grow Your Small Business

On The Largest Social Network In The World

While MySpace is credited for helping social networking go mainstream, Facebook broke the mold and turned the medium into a viable business model for internet and local small businesses alike.  In fact, Facebook’s growth has been so phenomenal over the past couple of years that it’s even been mentioned as a legitimate competitor to almighty Google.

Facebook’s growth is largely the result of building every tool possible within Facebook for individuals and businesses and allowing third-party developers create an army of helpful applications that make Facebook a fully self-contained destination. For small businesses, this means you can build a community, sell your products and services, find and hire employees, promote your business and network with your industry’s key players.

To help you get started taking advantage of all these great benefits, we’ve put together this easy-to-follow quick start guide to starting your Facebook account and finding your first Facebook contacts.

Step #1 – Go to Facebook and fill out the required information that includes: your full name, a valid email address, your chosen password, your gender and your birth date.  Then click sign up.

Step #2 – Next you’ll need to briefly fill out the Captcha information that helps Facebook reduce spam.  Then click sign up.

Step #3 – Once you’ve entered the correct Captcha information, Facebook sends you a confirmation email to the address you supplied.  Login to your email, open the message from Facebook and click the link contained within.

Step #4 – When you click the confirmation link, a new window will open taking you back to Facebook.  At this stage, you may get an invitation from someone who has already wondered if you were on Facebook and has done a search for you.  If so, either confirm or ignore these requests.  Next, click skip this step.

Step #5 – The more friends you have on Facebook, the more powerful it becomes.  To help you get started, Facebook allows you to search for your friends through your current email accounts.  To do so, click the find friends on Yahoo (or whatever email service you signed up with) button.  You can then go through and click on each of your contacts you’d like Facebook to search for and send an invitation from you to add you as a friend.

You can also repeat this step for each of your other email accounts (hotmail, Gmail, etc.)

Step #6 – Now that you’ve sent out a few invitations, you’ll want to start filling out your profile information.  Include your high school, college and company information and Facebook will also find friends you may know through these networks.  Click Save.Add as many as you like, however, be aware they will only become your friends once they’ve accepted your invitation.  Once you’ve selected all those you’d like to add, click Add as Friends.

You’ll also be asked to join a geographical network.  Choose your location and click Join.

Step #7 – That’s it.  Your brand new Facebook account is now set up and ready to go.  A popular first action is to let the community know what’s on your mind.  To do so, type in the information in the box and click Share.

Congratulations!  You’re now part of the largest network in the entire world.  Check out our other Facebook posts for tips and information on growing your network and getting the very most of your time.

If you’d like to join our network on Facebook, feel free to visit my profile and add me as a friend.