How to Creating Your Facebook Profile

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Introduction

On Facebook, you are represented by your Profile—a page that communicates who you are. Your Profile can include information about your age, gender, background, interests, hobbies, relationships, and more—or none of these things at all. You'll decide how much you want to share about yourself on your Profile.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to add details to your Profile and choose privacy levels for the information you share. We'll also talk about how to use the View As Tool and explain how Likes can affect your Profile.

Creating Your Facebook Profile

 Controlling Privacy on Your Profile

               

               

Before you add any information to your Profile, you should think about how that information will affect how people think about you. This doesn't just apply to negative or embarrassing information—you may not want to share any information you would be uncomfortable sharing with every person in your life.

As with other things you share on Facebook, you can use the audience selector to set privacy levels for each part of your Profile. However, keep in mind that the only way to be certain that your information will stay private is to not share it at all. If you'd be deeply embarrassed about details of your personal life becoming public, you shouldn't share that information on your Profile.

   

Creating Your Profile

There are two parts of your Profile: the Profile page and the About page. The Profile page appears whenever you or anyone else navigates to your Profile, and also includes your Profile picture, Cover photo, and Timeline. The About page includes the personal details and information you've shared.

To edit the information on your About page, navigate to your Profile page and then select Update Info.

Accessing your information page

*Click the buttons in the interactive below to learn more about adding information to your Profile and setting privacy levels for the details you share.

*You can learn how to add your Profile picture, cover photo, and more by reviewing our lesson on Getting Started with Facebook

Checking Your Profile Privacy

Once you've chosen your Profile's Privacy Settings, you should double-check your Profile to ensure you're not sharing more than you intended. The View As Tool makes this easy, allowing you to see what other people see when they view your Profile.

To Use the View As Tool:

1. Locate and select the Advanced Settings Gear on your Profile page, then select View As... from the drop-down menu.

Clicking View As...

2. A preview of your Profile page as it would look to someone who is not your Friend on Facebook will appear. You can also click View as Specific Person to see your Profile as it would look to specific Friends.

Viewing your Profile page as it would appear to the public

3. Review your Profile to make sure you can't see any information you'd rather keep private. When you're finished, click the X in the top-left corner of the page to return to your Profile.

Exiting View As...

Understanding Likes and Interests

When you add details to the Information page of your Profile, you can include information about your favorite music, movies, hobbies, and more, which are known as Likes. Any organization or celebrity you've Liked on Facebook will also appear here. Your Likes are represented by a small thumbnail image on the Likes section of your Profile information page. Each of these images is actually a link to a Fan page or Topic page about a particular Like or Interest.

Linked interests on a Profile

The information you share about Likes is very valuable to Facebook. Facebook and other sites can use it to market, advertise, and make suggestions to you based on your interests. While these are common advertising practices across the web that some people do not mind, many others are simply unaware of them altogether. The examples below list a few ways Facebook uses this information. If you are uncomfortable with any of these practices, you may want to be more careful about what you Like on Facebook.

Here are a few of the places you might see your Likes and Interests around Facebook:

*Your Likes and Interests may be included in your Profile when people conduct a public search for you. If you use Facebook for professional networking, you may want to make sure your interests don't reflect poorly on you.

Public Search results showing Likes and Interests

*Anything you Like can be posted to your Timeline or to your Friends' News Feeds for your Friends to see. This can be mildly embarrassing or very revealing, depending on your interests.

Revealing interests posted in Facebook's News Feed

*Posts from the Fan Pages of your Likes and Interests will appear in your News Feed.

Promotional post based on Likes and Interests