One of the best new phenomenons within the new social media realm within the past year or two has been the addition of video chat to Facebook. The reason why social media video chat’s addition to Facebook has been so important is because video chat has been a complicated business up to this point. Setting up a webcam and installing a video chat application has had the issue that it was harder for younger people and people who are less technical to set up. The addition of built in webcams or laptop PCs and Apple Macbooks has helped solve the problem of configuration of the webcam. Also, gadgets such as tablet devices and smart phones have built in webcams that help with the setup and configuration of the hardware.
From a software perspective, one of the issues that have held back the large scale adoption of video chat up to this point has been the fragmentation of video chat platforms. Many corporate users have used video chat for project team meetings or client meetings via Skype. Many family members who connect with each other via video chat have chosen Yahoo Messenger, as the video options presented through Yahoo are a natural extension of their popular text chat application.

The addition of video chat to Facebook has come a long way in solving both the hardware configuration and software divergence hurdles. Here is the easiest way to employ a webcam chat on Facebook:

1. Go to your Friend’s timeline and find the Call button near the top of the screen. Click Call

2. If the webcam has not been set up already, select the Set Up instructions from the pop up dialog

3. Once the set up is complete, complete your call to your Friend. If your Friend does not connect immediately, you can leave a video message if you choose.

If you have a webcam and microphone, but are still having problems after following these instructions, it is important to make sure you have your webcam and microphone plugged in correctly to your computer and also that they are in good working order. One of the cool features of Facebook’s video chat is that you can still take advantage of video chat without the use of a webcam. If you only have a microphone and no webcam, you will still be able to see your Friend’s video, but they will only be able to hear your voice.

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Jason Phillips authored this post. He is a freelance blogger and has contributed many articles at various blogs. He love to do webcam chat at his free time.