Using Facebook
This training covers how to set up a Facebook account and reviews the basics of your profile, following, and creating content to help you get started online.
Getting Started
- Go to the facebook website (www.facebook.com) to create your account. You can fill out your account information under “Sign Up” on the right hand side of the page.
- Facebook will ask you for your first and last name. Put your real name here; it will show up on your profile.
- Then you will fill out a mobile number or email, which you will be using to log into your account.
- Then enter your birthday and gender, and then click “Sign Up”.
Note: you’ll have the options to make all of this information private if you don’t want it to be publicized on your account.
5. Facebook will ask you to enter a verification code that was sent to either your phone number, or email, based on which one you entered. Enter the code that you received in either your number as a text message, or to your email, and then press “Update Contact Info.”Note: it's important as you set up your initial shared chapter account to think through contingency plans. How will you handle sharing access to the account login if the original creator of your chapter's account leaves town? One recommendation is to use your CCL chapter email forwarder (visible here by your chapter: cclusa.org/chapters) as the login information so it can be shared with someone and help make succession planning easier. If you have any questions, feel free to ask our social media team at https://cclusa.org/cclsocial
Adding Profile Information
- After confirming, you will want to add your profile picture and cover photo by either clicking “Add Photo”, where you can upload a photo you already have as a profile picture, or “Take a Photo”, where you can upload a photo of yourself by taking a photo using your computer’s webcam.
- Fill out the bio, cover photo, and other information. On the toolbar at the top, click on your name. This will link you to your profile, where you can fill the rest of it out.
- You can add a cover photo by clicking on the camera icon on the banner behind your profile picture.
- For your bio, you can include as much or as little information as you like about yourself within 101 characters. You might write something like “I work in finance, I’m raising two kids, and I volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby.” CCL’s page says, “Our solution to climate change? Democracy. We empower everyday people to work together on climate solutions. Supporters are organized in more than 500 local chapters across the US. We’re building support in Congress for a bipartisan climate solution.”
Choosing Your Privacy Level
Facebook also lets you choose a privacy level. You can set your Facebook profile to be private or public. You can adjust the privacy by clicking on an arrow all the way to the right of the toolbar at the top of the screen. Click “Settings.” Then on the menu on the left, click “Privacy.” From here, you can read what the different settings mean and adjust your privacy settings.
There are a lot of great resources out there on the Internet about Facebook’s privacy settings, and here’s one tutorial that we recommend looking into.
Liking & Following Pages
To get started using Facebook, you’ll want to “like” and “follow” some pages. Click on “Home” to see what’s called your “home feed,” where you see the posts from pages you follow and friends and family you connect with. At the top, there’s a search bar. Click in that search bar, type in “Citizens’ Climate Lobby,” and press “enter.”
- You’ll see a variety of options pop up from the search. Be sure to select the page named Citizens’ Climate Lobby. It should have a blue check next to it, which means the profile is “verified” (how you know it’s really us).
- Click on the page to be taken to CCL’s Facebook profile. Click “like” if you haven’t already. Now when you sign in to Facebook next time, our posts will show up on your home feed. You’ll be able to see posts we make about the Energy Innovation Act, new articles, and climate change information.
- Click “Following” and select “See First.” This means that when you log on, CCL’s posts will appear in the beginning of your news feed. Facebook is always trying to figure out what type of content you like, so that it can show you more of that.
You can use the search bar to search other chapters, friends, senators, or any other pages you want to like, or friends you’d like to add to your friend list.
Interacting With CCL
Once your profile is all set up, start using the platform to interact with other people and organizations and the things they post.
There are three ways you can interact with a post:
- Hover over “Like” and you will see a thumbs up, indicating you liked the post, as well as several emojis that can demonstrate your reaction to the post. You can pick any one of them.
- You can also type a comment in the comment bar. Whatever you’re feeling or thinking about the original post, share it in the comments. You might also enjoy reading through other people’s comments and reply to them. Social media is all about connecting with other people, after all!
- The last thing you can do is to click “share” to share our post with your own Facebook friends. If you’d like, you can add your own comment when you share the post.
Creating Posts & Tagging Friends
You might want to create your own post about going to your local chapter meeting, having a lobby meeting with your member of Congress, or to share other exciting CCL news with your Facebook friends. To make a post, you can either go back to your profile page by clicking on your name on the toolbar or you can go to the top of your Home feed to create your own posts. On the box it should say “Create Post”, where you can share something, whether it is text, photo or video.
After clicking “Create Post” a drop down box will appear above the blue “Post” option that says “Friends.” This is how you can select the privacy of your post. You can choose to keep it to friends only, friends of friends, or you can choose to make it public if it is a topic you want lots of people to be able to see.
Note: Facebook sets all your posts to your default privacy setting, unless you individually select a different setting here.
You can also tag your friends, which means that their profile will be linked to the post, and they will be notified of this. You might want to tag them in a photo or video they appear in, or in a post where you think they will enjoy the topic. You tag them by using the @ symbol and then typing their name. You will see a list of friends pop up that have that name and then you select the right person.
You can also tag your friends in the comments of posts from Pages you follow or other friends. You might do this because you want them to get a notification and see the post information.
Getting More Support
If you want more support for using Facebook, or want to learn about what other CCL volunteers are doing on Facebook, we recommend you join the Social Media Action Team. This Action Team is a private group for CCL volunteers and social media superstars. The goal of the team is for you to provide support for CCL’s national efforts with strategic social media activities. Often, this means adding positive comments on posts from members of Congress, sharing specific posts from CCL, etc.
The team is led by CCL’s Content Marketing Manager Elissa Tennant and Communications Director Flannery Winchester. They post new actions in the group discussion regularly and other members of the group are also welcome to post social media questions or action opportunities as well. We request that members keep their posts focused on social media and actions folks can take. (If they are not, they will not be approved for publishing in the group.)
When you request to join our group, there are three questions you must answer prior to being approved (email address, how long have you been a volunteer, and what chapter are you part of). Don’t forget to answer these questions so that one of our moderators approves your request in a timely manner.
Getting Started
(from beginning)
Adding Profile Information
(1:45)
Choosing Privacy Level
(3:06)
Liking & Following Pages
(4:21)
Interacting With CCL
(5:13)
Creating Posts & Tagging Friends
(7:05)
Getting More Support
(8:41)
- Ashley Hunt Martorano