Social networks are for more than just socializing (and high school classmate stalking). For example, as we discussed in Now Hiring, you can use LinkedIn’s professional application suite to communicate and collaborate with your colleagues and contacts.

Likewise, you should consider using Facebook’s built-in events application for your next social or professional get together. Just about everyone has a Facebook account (well, at least the digitally fashion forward do), and the popular social network is a valuable tool in both networking and brand building. So why not dip into your own resources and utilize you Facebook contact list?

Creating an event is a simple three-step process. From your Facebook homepage (and yes, you will need an account to do this), you can find the events function in your applications toolbar. If you haven’t already added it, you can get it from here. Choose “create a new event” and fill out the form (name, date, location, etc). Then, decide your event’s access levels – who is invited? who can see the events page? should the event appear in your news feed? You catch our drift. Next, choose your guest list and send out the invite. You can even email non-Facebook friends through the platform as well.

Now all you have to do is sit back and see who accepts. Like a Facebook profile, you event has its own page, so you can see a snapshot of event activity from the guest list to comments and pictures – a nifty utility for sharing post-event pictures.