How to create a Facebook profile

02 Apr 2020

Social media is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends. Not sure how to get started? Here, we show you how to create your own profile and find your friends on Facebook. 

1. Sign up for an account

Visit www.facebook.com. Under the heading ‘sign up’ fill in your details: first name, surname, email address and birthdate. Don’t forget to come up with your own password. 

Click on the big green ‘sign up’ button.

2. Confirm your email

Facebook will then send an email to the address you provided to confirm your account. Read the email and click on the ‘confirm your account’ button.

3. Look for your friends

Now Facebook will scour your email address book for addresses of people you know who are also on Facebook so you can add them as your friends. Enter your email address and Facebook will do the searching for you. 

A list will then appear of your friends who are on Facebook. Select the ones you want to add by ticking the boxes next to their photos.

4. Profile information

Here, Facebook can help you search for other friends based on where you have worked or studied. Enter here your high school, university employer, current city and hometown and hit ‘save and continue’. Again, a list of friends will appear, which you can then choose to add to your network. You can also choose to skip this step if you wish.

5. Add a profile picture

If you have a photo of yourself on your computer, click on the big green button ‘add picture’. If not, click on ‘take a photo with your webcam’.

6. Like, share, search and discover

Congratulations, you now have a Facebook account. 

Your newsfeed will now include updates your friends have shared with you. To create your own update to share with others, write whatever you like under ‘update your status’ and hit ‘share’. You can also upload photos in this same section or share news articles with others.

If you like what you read in your newsfeed, you can hit the ‘like’ button under someone’s photo or status and comment on it.

The search toolbar at the top will help you find interesting pages created by companies or media outlets that you may be interested in, as well as other friends. 

For example, type in ‘Probus South Pacific’ in the toolbar and hit enter, then click on the page, which you can then ‘like’, so you receive updates from the page in your newsfeed, including news from other clubs and information about Probus. You can follow Probus here.

You may even want to consider creating a Facebook page for your own Probus club to share photos and information with members.