Facebook Tutorial

 I've had a couple of conversations over the last week or so with people about Facebook, and both of them seemed to think that Facebook was a really scary place.

That may have been true once, but honestly, these days Facebook is one of the safest social media sites in existence.  All the ranty people seemed to move to Twitter, and the youngsters do TikTok or Instagram (and the wierd people do Tumblr - I like Tumblr!).

I find Facebook invaluable for local community information.  If you follow the Hay on Wye Community Notice Board page, you can find out about local events, or someone will post about a lost dog and a couple of hours later it will have been claimed by the owner, or you can ask what's happening about the roadworks, or see vintage photos of Hay.  The Hay Woodland Group posts information about the path by the river and the Warren, and wildlife photos.  

I also keep in touch with friends in different areas of the country through Facebook, and I follow pages about archaeology and books and Star Trek and Doctor Who, and some of my favourite authors like Dorothy Sayers or Ben Aaronovitch or Mary Stewart. 

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If you haven't tried Facebook before, you first have to join the site (as usual with these things, you need a password).  Once in, you have a Feed, and your own Home Page.  Both of these will be empty to start with because you haven't posted anything, and you haven't made any friends yet.  

So you start to search Facebook (there's a handy little search bar at the top of the page).  Facebook will also suggest people or groups that you might know or be interested in, and you can look at those or ignore them as you choose.

For local information, I recommend:

Hay on Wye Community Notice Board. 

(there are also pages for Talgarth, Clifford, Cusop, Llanigon, Three Cocks, Hay and Brecon Chat, Glasbury and so on).

Hay Woodland Group

Hay Pride

Hay Castle Trust

St. Mary's Church, Hay on Wye

Cllr Gareth Ratcliffe News and Updates

The Globe at Hay

Fairtrade Hay

Hay Music

Richard Booth's Bookshop Cinema

Stuff for FREE in Hay on Wye and Surrounding Areas 

(I was going to include a Hay Library page, but none of them seem to have updated recently).

There are more, but I think these are plenty to get started with.

Once you have some of these, you'll probably see the names of people you know posting there, and you can ask them to be your friend by hovering the cursor over their name and then clicking on the box Add Friend.  When you do this, you see all the things they post on your Feed, and you can make comments if you like.  If you post something, then your friends will see it on their Feed, and can chat about it with you.

You can also send and receive private Messages that are not seen by anyone other than the person you want to contact.

If you see something you don't like, you can block that person so you never see anything they post again, or you can Unfollow them.  You do this by clicking on the three little dots on the same line as their name.

And that's really all there is to it.