A letter to Mr Mark Zuckerberg..!!

Dear Mr Zuckerberg,

Sub: Beginner’s video guide to Facebook.

It was around the year 2008 when I started to see a lot of my friends hanging out on Facebook. It was a time when other social media platforms were not mainstream. Remarks from my friends, like, “why are you not on Facebook?” really made me think that I am missing out on something BIG. Not only friends, but a lot of brands were also asking the same question though in an indirect fashion, by embedding URLs like facebook.com/xyz in their media message inviting people like me to find them on Facebook. They still do!

In the summer of 2010, I took a leap of faith and braced myself to be a part of the Facebook cult.

Once I signed up for an account on Facebook, I started to get people I may know kind of communication. At first it was a magic to me, Facebook knew the people I know! But very soon I was overwhelmed by the functionalities/features offered by Facebook. I did not know how to manage a sudden barrage of friends who somehow found out that I have joined Facebook. I was completely lost as to where to begin and manage the entire affair. I felt bad about my ignorance on things such as like, poke, newsfeed, wall. I had to master a completely new vocabulary, to come across as a cool dude to my peers.

Facebook help center, offered some relief, though it did not serve the purpose of someone like me who wanted to get to speed soon upon joining Facebook. I wanted to be at par with my peers in exploiting all the cool things that Facebook has to offer.

Taking a cue from the learning theory proposed by Edgar Dale, which says that simulation/videos result in up to 70% - 90% learning, I looked out for Facebook tutorial videos on youtube, but was disappointed to find none of the official Facebook videos, though there were certain videos uploaded by Facebook enthusiasts, it did not inspire me much as it was not something official.

Mr Zuckerberg, here I am, still sitting in front of my Facebook page wondering how I get the max out of my Facebook account. It will be great if Facebook also provides its official getting started videos, alongside textual help in the help center. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine the number of zeroes a video will replace!!

I am sure this will further the popularity and stickiness of Facebook.

I’ll await your revert to my sincere request,

Thanks and Regards,

-Himanshu Agarwal