How to Set Up a Meeting in Facebook

Submitted by adfm

Posted May 05 2010 01:41 PM

Looking for an easy way to gather everyone together for a meeting, including people outside your organization? This excerpt from E. A. Vander Veer's Facebook: The Missing Manual, Second Edition will take you through the steps to set up a meeting in Facebook.

Intranets (private websites that only company employees can access) are great for lining up in-house meetings, but Facebook events are a handy way to organize get-togethers that involve a mix of coworkers and "civilians" such as clients, potential clients, suppliers, and former employees.

The thing you want to pay attention to when organizing an event is the level of access that you grant other people (see the section called “Creating Your Own Events”). So after you click the Events link on the left side of your Home page and then click "Create an Event" to display the "Step 1: Event Info" page, do the following:

Choose Secret from the Privacy drop-down list. Doing so keeps details of your event out of non-attendees' searches and News Feeds.
Click the Create Event button at the bottom of the "Step 1: Event Info" page and then decide how much access to grant attendees. If you expect meeting materials to flow just one way—for example, if you plan to post documents or multimedia files for attendees to review but they won't need to post stuff—turn off the Enable checkboxes to the right of Event Options on the "Step 2: Add Details" page. (Doing so helps prevent confusion and avoid the more serious threat of breached confidentiality in cases where, for example, you want to make sure nobody uploads private company documents.) If you don't want anyone to know who's attending the meeting—say it's a sales meeting and you don't want your attendees to get together without you before you've had a chance to give your official pitch—turn off the "Show the guest list" checkbox.