Useful Facebook Tricks People May Not Know About
89I was talking to some people about Facebook and I realized that not many people take the time to figure out or even enjoy tinkering with its options like I do. So I decided to write an article about some Facebook tricks that I've discovered so far. You might find them useful.
#1. Decluttering Your Homepage
If you're like me, then you hate it when your homepage gets cluttered with all the junk activity of your friends playing games on facebook. You know what I mean. Those "So and so robbed Don Purtino's mafia in Mafia Wars" or "Blah caught a Scavenger mouse in MouseHunt". No offense to those who play these games, I'm sure they're lots of fun, but the rest of us don't want our homepage to be filled with these stories that we can't see our friends' important activities amidst all the clutter.
Here's the good news: You can configure your homepage so it doesn't display these stories anymore! If you hover your mouse on a story on your homepage, a Hide tab will appear on its upper right corner. Click on it and you are given two options: (1) Hide the person publishing the story or (2) Hide the application the story is from. I usually hide the application. In our examples above, that would be: Hide Mafia Wars and Hide MouseHunt. Voila! You will never see Mafia Wars and MouseHunt on your homepage again! Nice, huh?
If you ever change your mind and decide you want to see stories from the application back on your homepage, simply click on Edit Options at the bottom right corner of the news feeds on your homepage, select the application you want and click Add To News Feeds. But I doubt if you'll ever do that.
#2. Using Homepage Filters
See those options at the top left side of your homepage? Those are filters. If you've segregated your friends into lists, you'll see the friends lists names there, too. Click on one to view the activities of the people in that particular friends list only. I, for example, have grouped my facebook friends into Family, PCGS Classmates, SHS-G Classmates, etc. If I want to know what my old high school classmates are doing on facebook, I click on the PCGS Classmates filter on my homepage and only the recent activities of my classmates from PCGS show up.
To go back to viewing the activities of all your friends, click on News Feed at the top of the filters.
It's also easy to create or reorder filters. To create filters if you haven't grouped your friends yet, click Create. Type in the name of your filter and add some friends to it. To reorder, click on More at the bottom and drag the filters around. Just so you know, only the items above the double line show up by default when you visit your homepage. If you want to delete filters, click Create, select the filter you want to delete and click Delete This List. Remember to save your changes!
#3. Customizing Info Privacy
When I first started out on Facebook, I had decided to add to my friends list only people that I knew personally, so I filled out all the details in my Info tab. Then I started getting friend requests from online acquaintances or even strangers and I realized I couldn't display certain contact information to these people. As I was about to delete the info, I realized that you can customize privacy settings for each individual item in your Contact Information. Here's how:
- Click the Info tab on your profile.
- Hover your mouse over the Contact Information portion.
- Click on the Edit button that appears on its upper right corner.
- Click on the padlock icon next to each item and select Customize.
- Select Some Friends and choose only the friends or networks that you want to allow. You can even put exceptions.
Another way to do this is to hover your mouse over Settings (beside Logout), then click on Privacy Settings. There you can control your privacy settings for your Profile, Search, News Feed and Wall, and Applications.
#4. Cleaning Up Your Wall
Has your wall ever gotten hijacked by notifications such as "Blah started the quiz: Dr. Phil's Personality Test" then "Blah completed the quiz: Dr. Phil's Personality Test with the result The Vain, Self-Centered Leader" followed by a big story stating the same thing. Get rid of the duplicates by clicking on the Remove button that appears to its right when you hover on it! I've seen so many walls overrun by these useless notifications. I also remove the notifications that appear on my wall when I change some information on my profile. I like things neat and organized. (Which is why I hate that the current Facebook rearranges posts on my wall every now and then instead of following a chronological order.)
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#5. Tagging People In Notes
Have you ever wondered if anybody bothers to read your notes on Facebook? It's like, nobody comments. And you wonder if your friends know you ever wrote it? That's happened to me, and I've realized that it's probably because my friends' homepages are so cluttered with the aforementioned junk that they didn't notice the note I wrote. So now I tag the people for whom the note was intended.
Well, strictly speaking, you only tag people in a note when you've mentioned them or written about them in it (just like you tag people in pictures and videos when they are in it), but I guess we can stretch the tag function a little. When you tag a person in a note, picture, or video, it appears on their wall so they have no chance of missing it. Unless they never look at their wall, which is pretty much impossible.
How do you tag people in notes, you ask? Easy. When you write a new note, you'll find "Tag people in this note" to the right of the title. When you type people's names into the blank, they appear under "In this note" and you've tagged them. When you publish the note, it will appear on their walls.
#6. Writing Notes
Okay, I assumed in #5 that you know how to make notes. For those who don't or have no idea what notes are, they're like mini-blogs where you can write anything for your friends to read. Where do you find the option to write a note, you ask? Well, by default it is bookmarked on the lowest portion of your profile. It's the icon that looks like a page on a spring-bound notebook. (Hover your mouse over the icons until you find "Notes".) When you click it you're taken to your friends' notes by default. There's a "Write a new note" button on the upper right corner. That's what you're looking for if you want to start a new note.
To view notes you've already written, click My Notes. Or you can click on your Notes tab in your profile. The "Notes about me" portion contains all the notes in which you are tagged.
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Comments
I loved it and learned a lot that I shall do...Thanks a million my dear...:o) Hugs
I certainly bookmarked this page for later use. A cluttered FaceBook is a sideshow house of mirrors. Thanks!
hey thanks for the info... i'll start uncluttering now hehehe
Hehe... I've been spending a lot of time in Facebook lately and my obsessive-compulsiveness just couldn't take the chaos anymore. Haha! You're welcome, everyone. :-)
Hi Teacher Susan, I will try this one... I want to declutter as often as possible! :D
My homepage is becoming an eyesore. I must use your tips to cleanup! Thanks!
Wow! Never knew how much I was missing on Facebook. Thanks!
Yea good tips.
Wow and I thought I knew it all LMAO
Haha! I hadn't realized so many people would relate to this article. Glad to have helped make Facebook a better place for all of you. :P
Good tips- thanks! I think it's important for ppl to know how to use social networking sites - especially privacy settings. I used to hate Facebook 'till I realized how much you can customize your own experience.
Thanks fo the tips!
Dear Susan,
thanks for the info. I needed them coz i was getting lost on facebook.
tc..Prakash
One thing that has gone crazy on facebook recently is all those stinking quizes. It seems like every five seconds another person is taking some pointless quiz about something. Now I can hide those things from my view forever!
Thanks.
Great tips! Thanks
i already do this tricks. thanks
Finally! Someone wrote something useful that I could understand about facebook. Thanks!
You're welcome, everyone. :-)
Hey, thanks alot for the tips. Until just now I had absolutely no idea how to make a note lol.
Hmm! I am really thankful to you. Thanks for this Hub!
Hi Susan NG,
This is nice. In fact I have not yet tried any of these options. It will help me improving my Facebook performance.
I have rated this up and proceeding to join your fan club.
Thanks,
Jyoti Kothari
Lots of information. i should check my facebook right away!
Thanks.
Glad to have you as a fan, Jyoti Kothari. :) And you're all welcome. :)
Just when I thought everything about FB that needed to be said had already been said. Good stuff!
ANY tips for managing Facebook is always appreciated. Great tips here. Thanks!
Good tip.
good to know that there is a tricks like this however,do you know any application to open face book like YM is that possible?
You learn something every day... hanging out at HubPages helps that, too! Thanks for sharing this info with us.
Murilion, you mean you want to chat using Facebook? You do that by clicking on Chat at the bottom right corner of your screen, then selecting any friend who is online to chat with. (I just noticed this change today, by the way. It used to be Online Friends, now it's Chat.)
And to everyone, thanks. :)
Thanks for the insight.
I am still trying to understand how to navigate the wesite, so this is a big help.
I started using Facebook about 10 months ago, you just taught me so much, THANK YOU! I do hate all the sites that pop up and like my screen/home page to be nice and organized. I appreciate the info.
nice information, I am facebook holic.Now, I can filtering and avoiding spam.thanks for share
I often feel that my FB home page is as unruly as my bikini line. Thanks for the cleanup tips!
I am just about getting used to the new facebook home page. I liked the old one better. i did not know about this friends list and filter stuff. I am going to use it right away. Even I am limiting my friend list to people I know because I don't want total strangers to get my details.
Great tips! Your hints make navigating so much easier!
Great info, thank you.
Thanks, this is good! On the whole, I find Facebook intensely irritating but for a few of my long-distance friends, it's the best way to keep track of them. You've given me some good ideas how to make the experience better - I like your URL too!
I just joined Facebook so I can use tips like this. Thanks it was really helpful and interesting.
Thanks Susan this Hub is getting the thumbs up from me. FB was just about to lose me but I will bookmark your hub and follow all your instructions. Thanks again I am becoming a Fan for sure !!!. :-)
That will be some very useful information for me. Thank you for sharing it. Can I friend you? (Just kidding.)
Good work!
I have been meaning to set some time aside to figure out what I want to do with Facebook and never seem to find the time. This is great information that will save me loads of time hopefully when I do finally get around to sorting things out. Many Thanks
Wow, there really are a lot of Facebook users! :) Thanks for all your kind words, everyone. Glad to have helped. :)
Ha! That video is awesome! "Too close for missiles, I'm switching to guns." Good tips on facebooking.
I felt the same way when I saw that video, Ransomed. The people who made that video are geniuses! And thanks. :D
WOW!!! You put a lot of time into this HUB, it definetlyshows!!! I found the information extremely helpful! I became a fan of yours and rated you UP too, please join my fanclub as well! Keep up the excellent work! Barry ;)
Hey, I was needing something like this when you joined my fan club. Must be fate. Thanks a lot. Will look forward to reading more of your hubs!
By the way, did you know I'm the greatest editor in the world?
Thanks. :) Must be fate or the Law of Attraction at work. :D Are you offering your editing services for free, MindField? Hehe. :D
Wish I could, Susan! If someone would pay off my house and make sure the fuzzy kids and I were provided with the necessities of life (and occasionally one or two non-necessities), I'd do it in a heartbeat. That's how much I love what I do and the people I do it for. But, if you read my Rage Slaves hub, you'll see that I'm absolutely desperate not to go back to a way of life that was (literally, I do believe) killing me.
Send me enough paying customers, though, and we'll talk!!
Hehe. Now I know where to find "the greatest editor in the world." :D And I like your fuzzy kids by the way, I got three of my own. :D
I promise not to post all those top 5 choices any more :) I've started skipping publishing game notifications on my facebook wall. I wish others would do the same...I'll give your ideas a try.
Haha! Me, too. All those game notifications and quizzes mess up my wall. :P
Great tips, I never knew. I kind of let it do its thing, but controlling it seems kind of easy after reading this hub. What I hate is when I participate in one of those stupid questionares, it's actually some kind of link to something else and / or it wants to spread to all your friends so they can click on all the hidden advertising links too. Yech. No more quizzes!
The video cracked me up!
Wow thanks for the excellent info Suz. I guess I've waited *way* too long to get into the Web 2.0 thingy & I've just been on Facebook a few months. I've only been on HubPages about 4 days. lol But again, thanks, your Facebook info will be very useful!
Chris Lackey
Hey, ReverseMobileInfo. I just read the comment you posted 10 days ago. I have no idea how I missed it! Thanks for the compliment. :)
And you're right about those quizzes, Alexander. I used to do them but they're like weeds growing out of control. Hehe. :P
Glad you found the article useful, Dr. Chris. And welcome to HubPages. :)
Ugh, unfortunately the "edit lists" option no longer exists - or doesn't show up for me - the only option I get now is to create a list, not to review existing ones. And more random Facebook-generated list foo is showing up in there - clutter, begone. *sigh*
You're right, KJ. Facebook changed again. But you can still edit your friends list by going to Friends, clicking the name of the list you want to review, then selecting Edit List. :)
Facebook keeps changing like a chameleon changes its color, it's hard to keep up sometimes! :P
Yes, I'd rather remove the "lists" that Facebook has generated on my behalf, like the "Which LOLcat are you" list (wtf?) or the "Selective Twitter Status" list. That's just ridiculous. It may well be worth installing a couple of Greasemonkey scripts I read about like Facebook Remaker, seen here http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/39048 or any number of scripts as featured on this page here http://www.msquaredweb.com/blog/articles/GreaseMon .
Thanks for the tips, KJ. :)
This is great information for FB newbies like myself. Your screen shots were a big help. I'm off to eliminate Mafia Wars app posts and to screen out a few of my friends!
That's great, wannabwestern. And thanks. :)
Great cleanup tips -- thanks!
Some good tips. Going to try out the decluttering the notifications bit now. Don Carlino can get his AK47 back and I'll never know. :-)
Don Carlino will never know, either. Hehe. Thanks, nutuba and Sam. :)
Great tips! Thank you for sharing, I've certainly learned a few things. You or readers might also be interested in a HUB I wrote about how to put your HubPage RSS feed into your Facebook page.
Thanks, Happy Hubber. :)
Thanks Susan. Useful and enjoyable.
You're welcome, Peter. :)
I LOVED YOUR VID IT WAS COOL AND HELPFIL
You're right, not so many choose to play around Facebook customisation features. Facebook has been said to be intuitive, so that alone may work for people who simply want to start making friends, view people's updated stuff, and upload pictures and videos. I find that your guide here could be useful to many people who many not even be aware they might want to do these things on their accounts. These tricks would also be good for online marketing people who need to maintain a company presence in social networking circles. Good hub.
Hey great hub, and Roberts comments above nailed it for me on why it is, "These tricks would also be good for online marketing people who need to maintain a company presence in social networking circles."
They certainly are especially as I am just beginning the process of using facebook for that purpose. thanks for the tips
Thanks, Robert and Cam. :)
Those are some very useful tips,but by the way fyi i had found a social newtwork thats actually pretty easier to use check out my blog.. http://bit.ly/E5XTT
Nice tips.
So grateful. My daughter told me there were filters and I couldn't find but a few. I've homework now...
I like the notes feature of Facebook, however would like to be able to control which of my friends can see them. I don't see any choice to do that. Anybody know how?
Thanks
Filters......I need that and didn't know about it. Thank you.
Hi,
I truly appreciate your Hub. I'm new to Facebook and look forward learning how to use all of the options. Thanks so much.
mailxpress
Greg, when you create or edit a note you can select note privacy. Scroll down until you see "Who can see this?", select the appropriate friends, and click Save. :)
You're welcome, Tesa and mailxpress. :)
how to tag people that not in my friend list? is that possible?
"Unless they never look at their wall, which is pretty much impossible."....
Have you typed the words 'facebook' and 'deactivated' into Twitter search recently?
I don't think you can, christon. Why don't you just add him or her to your friends list and then tag them? :)
No, Pete, I don't use Twitter. What comes up when you do a search on "facebook deactivated"?
Thank you so much. You have solved a lot of the problems I had, especially with my application filters. Also taught me about notes and tagging people in notes. You are the tops.
That's a great post. I've been on facebook for years now and I didn't realise I could do the things you list in your post.
Thanks
Glad to be of service, Lieve and Guitarra. :)
Great post, learning how to use Facebook effectivly is very important and can make or break a good profile.Thanks for the hub.
Regards
Neil Ashworth
Cool hub! I've decluttered my profile now!
Good for you, facebookchat. :) And thanks, Neil. :)
is there an easy CHAT CLIENT for facebook and Hubpages??????
I'm curious
Not that I know of, PelosiisaLOSER1. :)
Thanks for short cutting the learning process!
Hiding the application is a good option but there are so many applications coming out everyday that it is becoming close to impossible to keep the page clean
Great information, thanks for sharing. creativeone59
Cool, I always like finding info like this.
Thanks :)
Susan
Thanks for the facebook how to...
Very nice list, thank you.
i agree.. totally! i feel the same. how annoying but addictive!
Thank you, and you're welcome. :)
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SweetiePie says:
7 months ago
Interesting look at Facebook. Honestly I do not really filter my Facebook page because I only log into it to post something and then leave. However, these are good tips for those who want to clean up their page.