100% free facebook tips and tricks
Facebook tips and tricks part 3
46. Not interested in a friend’s updates right
now?
If for whatever reason, you don’t want to see a
friend’s update (for example, their updates are
only about games you don’t play) you can hover
over their update, and a box will appear saying
‘hide’ – you’ll get different options based on
what sort of update you’ve hovered over.
47. Walls
You can have a public discussion by posting
something on someone’s wall. This appears in
your feed and there, so is great for
congratulating someone, or wishing them a
happy birthday. Walls are public though, based
on the person’s settings.
48. Boxes and tabs
Various apps will allow you to add boxes and
tabs to your profile. Boxes appear on a page,
and are small – tabs are headings much like a
filing cabinet. These can give you the ability to
display key information on your pages, or in
separate ‘sub pages’ but can also clutter your
profile page – be careful what you place and
where.
49. A box on your profile
There is a box on your profile, (when you click
view profile) which can be readily edited and
contains some key information that you choose.
Some people use it to show others their
calendar; others display a quote or some mini
information. Use this as best you see fit to give
your friends and new adds something interesting
to read.
50. Left hand side – your profile
Your profile has several key areas to interact
with – the middle where your feed is, your left
hand side, to access your stuff) and the right
hand side which has suggestions, your gifts and
other items from apps, and some other things,
such as pokes.
51. Messages – your messages are your
internal email inbox.
This gives you the opportunity to message
people without writing on their wall (see the
previous tip) or start a discussion between
friends – if you’re doing this frequently see our
tips on pages and groups.
52. Events
You can set up events – a bit like a calendar,
people can RSVP and you can use it to invite
friends to anything you’re doing, from a birthday
party at your place, to a gaming party or Guild
event in your favorite MMORPG. Use it to
organize social events without worrying about
lost emails.
53. Removing events you can’t attend
Once you have declined an event, you can then
remove it from your events list – simply open up
the event, optionally leave a note apologizing for
not attending then directly below the image on
the right hand side, there is an option ‘remove
from my events’.
54. Photos and videos
Your photos and videos list item will let you
access any photos that are tagged of you
(remembering your privacy settings) and review
them. You can also remove tags at any time –
which means even though you are in the photo,
it won’t list in your stream.
55. Applications
All of your applications are accessible from this
tab – it will take you through to a list of most
used and when, and will also give you options to
access others. This is a great tab to review
what apps you do – and don’t - use and remove
them to save them cluttering your feed, or visit
them and check what’s new. You can also
search for new apps from there.
56. Games
Much like the applications menu option, the
games option shows you when you’ve played,
whether your friends play (and how many) and
allows you to explore popular games amongst
your friends and the wider Facebook population
that you may not have seen yet.
57. Ads and pages
We talk more about ads and pages in their own
section (Part 5 – ads and pages) but this is how
you access them quickly, and if you choose to
advertise them, set up Adsense like adverts.
58. Groups
Your groups’ menu item is actually the access to
your pages and groups, two columned lists with
each showing recent activity and more. You can
easily view the things you may have missed
simply by checking the recent activity on these
pages.
59. Notes
Notes are a bit like mini blogs, or can be used
by you to import RSS feeds and automatically
post. Its Facebook’s own solution to
lifestreaming, but only allows you to import one
RSS feed at time. You could build a Yahoo pipe
of everything you wanted to import and use that
as your ‘uber feed’ if you had a lot of blogs
though, so it works out well.
60. Links
Your links menu option is a lot like Del.icio.us –
every time you post a link, it’s added to this list,
and you can view what your friends have been
posting recently, or just keep track of your own
stuff.
61. Right hand side
The right hand side of your page contains any
application items (such as gifts – be aware that
these build up really fast), friend suggestions,
information on inactive friends, pokes and event
listings (that you’ve accepted).
62. Gifts and application notices
Facebook has suggested that eventually these
will all be incorporated into the left bar of the
site, where your games are listed, but for now
you will still get listings of any gifts, invites to
games or any other requests (including friend
requests) in that top right corner. You should
keep on top of them – 20 invites a day leads to
140 at the end of a week and it can be time
consuming to prune them weekly.
63. Application notices out of control
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try your
application lists will get out of control. You can
either dedicate time to fixing them, or quit from
the app in question – by clicking ‘ignore app’.
You can also ignore a friend’s invites, but not
the friend themselves... Reload the page and
any you’ve ignored should be gone.
64. Suggestions
Facebook has an algorithm that chooses
information to show you – when people friend
other people, sometimes you will have
suggestions – as they do with pages and
groups. These suggestions and they can’t see
your profile (and until they add you, you won’t
see their whole profile). Suggestions can be
hidden or ignored.
65. Poking
Poking allows a person to see your profile (even
if they aren’t their friend). If they are your friend,
it will give them a message the next time they
log into their Facebook in the right hand bar of
their page. Any pokes you’ve received will be
here too for you to respond to.
66. Events
You will see a list of any events you’re
confirmed to attend in your sidebar – this is a
great feature because you can simply align your
diary by reading that area and booking it into
your time management system of choice. You
can also click through and turn down events, or
see who else is attending.
67. Ads
If you have used Facebook to place an ad, you
will find that they appear in the right hand bar. If
you keep seeing an ad, you can report it so
Facebook can fix their algorithm for showing
them, or hide them entirely from you.
68. Under the picture
You can view their profile by clicking on their
picture in your feed. Once there, you can poke
them, view videos and photos of them, or send
them a message. Below that is information that
they’ve made available to friends lists, including
relationship status. It’s a good way to catch up
with someone you haven’t seen in a while, then
reach out and contact them.
69. Commenting on their wall
You can leave people public messages on their
walls – as they can do on yours – just click in
the status box and write what you’d like them to
see – remember though, it also posts in your
feed, so be careful what you say.
70. Adding apps or boxes your friend has
If you see something really interesting that your
friend has, click through – and add the app
they’re using by following the instructions. If
you’ve seen a Facebook page that is exactly
how you’d like yours to be, click through and
create items as you can.
71. Commenting
You can comment from your own feed, or if
you’ve gone over to a friend’s profile (which is a
good idea just in case they’ve been bumped out
of your algorithm based feed) and comment
there. Comments have a length limit, but you
can split it over several boxes and it will stack
correctly.
72. Tagging
You can tag a friend, or yourself in most photos
you have access to – be aware that some
people dislike being tagged in photos, so if your
friend frequently removes tags of him or herself,
maybe you shouldn’t tag them. Any tags of
people in videos or photos or notes will appear
in their stream.
73. Group or page?
A page is basically a mini profile – a group has a
more group centric feel to its ‘front’ page, but
there’s very little difference between them in
reality. There are no current accurate figures
posted on limits to pages and groups, so there
may not be any – but be careful to join an
‘official’ group or fan page belonging to the
official entity – there are many unofficial fans
and groups on Facebook, and it’s not highly
policed at present.
74. Pages and apps
Some apps can post to pages as if they were
profiles – much like fully fledged Facebook
profiles, pages can have most of the features of
a ‘real’ profile, so adding apps to them may be a
possibility, depending on the app in question.
Explore your options carefully though, because
if an app is posting to your main profile, and
your page, people following both will get
duplicate content.
75. Groups
Groups are like clubs offline – you choose who
can join and how wide its access is. Much like
other parts of Facebook, it has its own wall,
which everyone can post to. Pages have two –
one for the owner to post to, one for fans to post
to, and then it all feeds into one amalgamated
stream.
76. Running both
Many people consider Facebook to be a place
for allegiances – groups would then represent
(casual) memberships and interaction in clubs,
pages could be considered a greater
endorsement or badge of interest, so running
both isn’t a bad thing.
77. Causes
There are specific apps for causes on
Facebook, but if you’re passionate about
something, starting a group, or page is a great
way to go – remember to make others admin (in
edit membership on the group or page’s main
page) so you’re not the only one in charge.
78. Ads
You can place your own ads on Facebook – and
they run a lot like Adsense ads in most cases.
You’ll need to condense whatever message you
want to ‘send’ into very short sentences, but
these ads are targetable and very powerful.
79. Farmville
Farmville is one of the most popular game apps
on Facebook and allows you to run your own
farm, grow your own (virtual) crops, tend
animals and more. Its simplistic interface allows
anyone to play easily. A similar game is Farm
Town, but the mechanics are only slightly
different.
80. Crops
Try to think about how often you check your
Facebook – if you’re planting crops, make sure
you’ll be able to come online to harvest them, or
they are a waste of space and coins. As the
more crops you harvest and the more crops you
plant has a relation to your level, planning your
crops carefully will allow you to maximize your
game play, and afford items you may need.