Chapter 25
Social Networking
Some of the most popular places to “connect” these days are those sites that are often called social networking sites—places that allow you to create your own page and connect with friends and family to see what is going in their lives. Some of the biggest web sites for social networking are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
In this chapter, we will show you how to access these sites. You will learn how to update your status, tweet, and keep track of those who are both important or simply of interest to you.
Facebook was founded in February of 2004. Since that time, it has served as the premier site for users to connect, re-connect, and share information with friends, co-workers, and family. Today, over 800 million people use Facebook as their primary source of “catching up” with the people who matter most to them.
NOTE: You cannot play Facebook games inside the Facebook app or via the Facebook.com website on your iPhone. This may disappoint you if you are a big Facebook game player; however, you can often get the same games (e.g., FarmVille) from the App Store, and then connect them to your Facebook computer version to keep your place.
On your iPhone, you have three primary ways of accessing your Facebook page at the time of publishing:
- Use Safari to go to the standard (full) web site:
www.facebook.com. - Use Safari to go to the mobile site:
http://touch.facebook.com. - Use the iPhone Facebook app.
NOTE: The iPhone version of the Facebook app is a bit more limited than the full web site, but it is much easier to navigate.
Different Ways to Connect to Facebook
You can access Facebook by using its iPhone-specific app or using one of the two previously mentioned Facebook web sites in your Safari browser. We will focus on the Facebook app for the iPhone for the duration of this chapter.
Downloading and Installing the Facebook App
In order to find the app, use the Search feature in the App Store and simply type in “Facebook.”
You can also go to the Social Networking category in the App Store and find the official Facebook app, as well as many other Facebook-related apps.
NOTE: Some of the apps may look like “official” Facebook apps, and they do cost money. However, the only “official” app is the iPhone/iPod app shown to the right.
In order to connect to your account on Facebook, you will need to locate the icon you just installed and click it. We use the example of Facebook here, but the process is very similar for the rest of the apps.
Once Facebook is successfully downloaded, the icon should look something like this.
The Facebook App
To get the Facebook app installed on your iPhone, start up the App Store and search for “Facebook.” Tap the Install button from the Facebook app listing.
Facebook App Basics
Once Facebook is downloaded and installed, the first thing you will see is the Login screen. Input your account information—your email address and password.
After you log in the first time, you will see a Push Notifications warning message.
Click OK if you want to allow these messages, which can be pokes from other Facebook friends, notes, status update notifications, and more.
Once you log in, you will see the Facebook screen main screen. Tap the Facebook logo to navigate around the app.
Navigating Around Facebook
Toggle between the Navigation icons and your current location by tapping the word Facebook at the top of the page.
For example, if you are in the News Feed and tap Facebook, you will see all the icons. Tap Facebook again and you will return to the News Feed.
From the icons page, you can access your News Feed, Profile, Friends, Messages, Places, Groups, Events, Photos, and Chat.
Communicating with Your Friends
Follow these steps to communicate with your friends on Facebook from the Facebook app on your iPhone:
- Tap Facebook at the top to see all the icons.
- Tap the Friends icon and your list of friends is displayed.
- Touch the friend and you will go to his Facebook page, where you can then write on herWall and see herInfo or Photos.
Uploading Pictures with the Facebook App
An easy and fun thing to do with Facebook is to upload pictures. Here, we show you how to upload pictures in the Facebook app:
- From the Facebook main icons, tap Photos.
- Choose an album, such as Mobile Uploads.
- Tap the Camera next to the What’s on your mind?box.
- Tap the Take Photo or Videobuttonto snap a picture or take a video to upload. Or, tap Choose From Library to navigate through the pictures on your iPhone until you find the picture you wish to
- Next, tap Write a caption… to write a caption, if so desired.
- To finish the upload, tap the blue Upload button and the photo will go into your Mobile Uploads folder.
NOTE: When you upload a photo, the image quality won’t be the same as it was originally on your iPhone.
Facebook Notifications
Depending on your settings for Facebook push notifications, you can be inundated by updates, wall posts, and invitations. If you don’t have too many Facebook friends and you want to know when someone is writing something on your wall or commenting on a post or picture, just set your push notification to ON, as shown in the next section.
When a notification comes in, it will appear in Notification Center or as Lock Screen Info if your phone is locked.
To access Facebook from the notification, just slide the Facebook icon across the screen or slide the Arrow button to unlock and read the message.
Settings to Customize Your Facebook App
Here’s how to adjust the settings for the Facebook app:
- Tap the Settings app.
- Tap Facebook in the left column.
- You can now adjust various options:
- Shake to Reload: This feature reloads or updates the page when you shake your iPhone.
- Vibrate: This feature vibrates to signal youwhen chat or message alerts are available.
- Play Sound: This feature lets you add an audible tone to chat and message alerts.
Follow these steps to adjust push notification settings:
- Tap the Settings app.
- Tap Notifications.
- Scroll down and tap Facebook.
- Set Notification Center to ON to receive push notifications.
- Tap Show to choose how many notifications appear in the list.
- Set the Alert Style to None for no notifications, Banners for new Notification Center–style alerts, or Alerts for old style pop-up notifications.
- Set Badge App Icon to ON to see the number of new notifications appear on the Facebook icon.
- Set Sounds to ON to hear an audible tone when you get a notification.
- Set View in Lock Screen to get notification info even when your phone is locked.
TIP: The Facebook app will bring in Facebook profile pictures to your Contacts list. This can be quite humorous, depending on the pictures. However, it can also upload your own, non-Facebook contacts’ information to Facebook’s servers, which might raise privacy concerns for you, your family, and friends.
LinkedIn has core functionality very similar to Facebook, but it tends to be focused on business and career interests. This is in contrast to Facebook, which is focused more on personal friends and games. With LinkedIn, you can connect and re-connect with current and past business associates, send messages, see what people are up to, have discussions, and more.
At the time of publishing, the status of LinkedIn was very similar to Facebook. You can go to the regular LinkedIn site on the Safari browser, or you can download the LinkedIn app for the iPhone.
Which is better? We liked the LinkedIn app for the iPhone slightly better than the full LinkedIn.com site in Safari. It was easier to navigate using the LinkedIn app with the large buttons, but you could see more on the screen in the Safari version. We recommend giving both options a try and seeing which you like better—it is really a matter of personal preference.
Downloading the LinkedIn App
The process for downloading the LinkedIn app is similar to the process for downloading the Facebook app. Start the App Store app on your iPhone, type “LinkedIn” into the Search window, and then locate the app. The LinkedIn app is free, so tap the FREE button to install it.
Logging In to LinkedIn App
Once the app is installed, click the LinkedIn icon and enter your login information.
Navigating Around the LinkedIn App
LinkedIn has a zone-based navigation system. Tap any stack to move to that zone, and then tap the LinkedIn logo at the top to return to the Home screen.
Communicating with LinkedIn Connections
One of the things you will most likely do the most with the LinkedIn app is communicate with your connections. The easiest way to do that is to follow these steps:
- From the Home page, tap the You stack at the top right.
- Tap the Connections button midway down the screen.
- Scroll through your connections or tap the Magnifying Glass search icon and type in a connection name in the Search box.
- Tap the connection you are looking for.
- Tap the Phone icon to call him (if he has chosen to share a phone number) or the Mail icon to send him a message.
Twitter was started in 2006. Twitter is essentially an SMS (text message)–based social networking site. It is often referred to as a micro-blogging site, and it is a place where the famous and not-so-famous can share what’s on their mind. The catch is that you have only 140 characters to get your point across.
With Twitter, you subscribe to follow someone who tweets messages. You might also find that people will start to follow you. If you want to follow us, we are @garymadesimple on Twitter.
Setting up Twitter
- With iOS 5, the Twitter app is built right into your iPhone. This means that the app lets you share content like pictures and posts from within other apps, like Photos. Follow these steps to set up Twitter:
- Tap the Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap Twitter.
- If Twitter for the iPhone isn’t already installed on your iPhone, tap the Install button to the right of the Twitter icon. (If Twitter for the iPhone is already installed, the Install button will be grayed out.)
- Tap User Name and enter your Twitter
@username. - Tap Password and enter your Twitter password.
- Tap the Sign In button.
- If you don’t have a Twitter account, tap the Create New Account button at the bottom of the screen and fill in the form to get one.
- Once you’re logged in, tap Account to change your options.
- If you want your friends to be able to find you on Twitter based on your email address, toggle Find me by Email to ON.
- If you want your location to be recorded every time you tweet from within an app, toggle Tweet Location to ON.
NOTE: If you tweet your location, potentially anyone on Twitter could find out where you are—including the fact that you’re not at home or work. If privacy is a concern, toggle TweetLocation to OFF.
Using Twitter
The official Twitter app takes a streamlined approach to using Twitter. The Home screen shows you the tweets from those you are following, andthe full message is nice and large.
Along the bottom are five icons, the first being the main Twitter feed. The other icons are Mentions, Direct Messages, Search, and the More button, which takes you to your Profile, Favorites, Drafts, Lists, and Accounts and| Settings.
The Compose Tweet icon is in the top-left corner (see Figure 25–1).
Figure 25–1. The layout of the Twitter app's Home page
Refreshing Your List of Tweets
To refresh your list of tweets, just pull down the main page and you will see the Pull down to refresh notification at the top. Once the page is pulled down, you will see a Release to refresh note. Release the page and it will refresh the tweets.
Your Twitter Profile
To display your Twitter profile, touch the More button and then touch My Profile.
To see your tweets, just touch Tweets.
To see those tweets you have labeled as favorites, touch the Favorites button.
To see those individuals you are following, touch the Following button.
NOTE: The number corresponding to your followers, those you are following, and your tweets is displayed above the title of the button.
Scroll down the page to see your Retweets; your Lists; and Services to which you can subscribe.
The Compose Button
Touch the Compose button 
and the New Tweet screen pops up. The character counter will count down from 140 as you type your message. Here are some things you can do from the New Tweet screen:
- Tap the @ symbol to search for other usernames to mention in your tweet.
- Tap the # symbol to search for trending topics to tag in your tweet.
- Tap the Camera icon to take a photo or video with your iPhone or choose an existing one from your library to add to your tweet.
- Tap the Arrow icon to add your current location to your tweet.
Options within Tweet
From your Twitter app's Home screen, just touch one of your tweets for the following options:
- Tap the Back Arrow at the bottom left of the screen to Reply to a tweet.
- Tap the square Double Arrows to retweet or quote a tweet.
- Tap the Star iconto favorite a tweet.
- Tap the Paperclip icon to view an attachment.
- Tap the Action button to copy a link to tweet, mail a tweet, or translate a tweet.
NOTE: Unlike with Facebook and LinkedIn, you can find a variety of alternative third-party Twitter apps in the App Store. If you don't like the official Twitter for iPhone app, try out Tweetbot, Twitterrific, or one of the many other apps.