Family, close friends, coworkers, clients, business connections…or as Facebook would call them…FRIENDS! No matter who you know or why you’re connected, Facebook refers to your connections as “friends”. However, that’s not always accurate to describe the relationship you share with those people. A great way to organize your “friends” on Facebook is to put them in to categories. Facebook calls these categories “Lists”. It may sound like a lot of work, but here are 3 good reasons why you will love your lists after they are created.
Reason #1 – Filtering your News Feed
After logging in to Facebook, you will be directed to your “Home” page and see the ongoing “News Feed” of updates from all of your friends in the middle of that page. Once you create “Lists” and put friends into those lists, you can choose to filter what you see in the news feed by selecting what list of friends you want to see.
Example: Lets assume you have a “List” of friends called “Family” and you put actual family members into that list. Lets also assume that you like your family and don’t want to miss any updates from them. Using lists, you can toggle from seeing everyone to just a particular list of friends. When you filter your news feed to your “Family List” you will only see updates from your family members. (You can easily toggle back to everyone by selecting “All Friends”) This is helpful when you have a few hundred friends and you don’t want to miss out on an important update from a family member. Often times this helps the news feed make a little more sense…especially if that list of friends is communicating with each other.
Reason #2 – Target Private Messages, Event Invitations and Public Profile Suggestions (aka Facebook Business Pages)
Once you have created multiple lists, you can use them similar to a email distribution list. When composing a new private message you can select “Lists” of friends as well as individuals.
Example: Lets assume you are connected to several clients from your business and you have created a “Clients List.” If your business is planning an open house and you want to invite all your clients, you could target that group of friends. You can also target them for future reminders and events. The same holds true for inviting friends to groups, events and even when suggesting your friends become a fan of a Facebook Business Page.
Reason #3 – Choose Who Can Chat Online With You
You may or may not have noticed the “Chat” option in the bottom right corner of your Facebook screen. If you have noticed it, at some point you were sitting at the computer and that little window popped up and it took a moment to figure out what was going on. Well, Facebook has an online chatting feature (similar to Instant Messaging with AOL and Yahoo) and the control panel for that feature is docked in the bottom right corner of your Facebook window. It’s a recent addition, but now you can decide which lists of friends can “see” that you’re online.
Example: If you only wanted your family to see that you were online and available to chat…or vise versa…you never want your family to see you online…you now have that choice. You can go completely invisible or you can hand pick the lists of friends that will be able to see you’re online and available to chat.
This blog is getting a little long, so I have some brief instructions below on how to create lists. Stay tuned for a more descriptive post with step by step instructions and screen shots on how to create friend lists.
Creating Friend Lists in Facebook
- Log in to Facebook
- Hover over the Friends Menu at the top of the screen
- Click on the drop-down option “All Friends” and you will be directed to a list of all your Friends on Facebook. By default they are organized alphabetically by first name.
- Along the left hand side you will see a section for “Lists” Click on the “+Create” link below the “Lists” section to start a new list.
- A window will pop up. In the blank field at the top of the window, type in the name you want to call the new list. Then, select friends to add to that list by clicking on them in that window. When you’re done selecting friends, you can click on the “Create List” button at the bottom of that little window and voila! New list is created!
You can create as many lists as you like. Don’t worry, friends will never know what list they are in. Also, you can put one friend into multiple lists…so someone in your “Family List” may also be in your “Poker Buddies” list.
Email me if you need help!
amy@weedott.com
Tags: Facebook, friends, Google Webmaster Tools, news feed, Tips
What a great post!! Just as you would organize your physical files, it is also important to organize your electronic data.
Very interesting. Keep this type of post up.
Thanks a lot!
[...] he … And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. [ 28] After this Jesus, knowing …Organize Your Facebook Friends Social Media Consultants… Your Facebook Friends Crystal Lorenzetti says: June 5, 2009 at … Name (required) Mail (will [...]