10 Tips to Make Facebook Easier to Navigate

by Clint Boulton

We can’t be logged into Facebook 24/7 to see everything that happens. Or at least not without our brain becoming mush. E-mail notifications help keep us connected even when we’re not, well, connected. To manage e-mail notifications, select the “Settings” link in the top right-hand corner of a Facebook page. Click Notifications and check the boxes for those actions you want to trigger e-mail alerts.

Want to change your old profile picture? Move the cursor over the upper right-hand corner of your current photo and select the “Change Picture” link that pops up. From there, you can choose from a number of steps to take. To use a photo in which you’re already tagged, select the “Make Profile Picture” link at the bottom right-hand corner of the photo.

Ignoring requests to be friends on Facebook, no matter how fleeting the acquaintance, or even if there’s been no introduction, can be awkward. While we can’t help you from feeling guilt from ignoring that erstwhile friend, we can help you do so without broadcasting it. When you get an unwanted friend request, click “ignore.” This will remove the request from your Requests list without telling the would-be friend. However, they will be able to send you another friend request in the future. But if you take no action on the request someone has sent they will not be able send you another friend request. You can also remove friends by scrolling down to the bottom left side of their Facebook profiles and clicking the “Remove from Friends.”

Want to make changes to your Facebook profile info? Go to your profile page, click “Edit My Profile” under your profile photo. Anything you change will be updated immediately.

We mentioned in the introduction that not everyone has been with Facebook since its barebones inception in 2004. For those of you who have new Facebook friends who need help on the vast site, the new Suggestions in the right-hand corner of your home page will help you help your friends. While this section has traditionally shown people that you may know and want to share with, it will also suggest that you help a new Facebook friend by suggesting friends for him if he’s only connected.

Twitter made tagging a big deal with the @ symbol and now Facebook does it, too. When you write a status update and want to include a friend’s name, add the “@” symbol before you start. As you type the name, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts.

To make it easier for you to invite friends to parties, Facebook added the ability to invite friends to an event based on who was invited to past events you’ve attended. To invite friends to a new Facebook event, click on the tab labeled “Filter Friends” in the upper-left corner. The drop-down menu will display the five most recent events you either created or attended in the past month. When you click on one of these events, you will see all of your friends who were invited to that event.

Have you noticed that searching Facebook for friends has gotten better? Earlier this year, Facebook improved its search service to let users not only search the last 30 days of their News Feed for content being shared by friends, but to also filter those searches to view only posts by friends or posts by everyone.

Publisher is the main place to add content such as photos, videos and status updates on your home page and profile. You can control what you share with whom from the publisher by using the lock icon in the lower-right corner of the Publisher to access the drop-down menu.

Some Facebook users may not know they can instant message their friends right from the bottom right-hand corner of their Facebook account with a feature called Facebook Chat. From this bar, users can view their list of online friends and open conversations with them. You can also filter connections in Chat. To create a new list, select the “Friend Lists” menu on the Chat pane, enter a new list name and drag the names of people to include into the list.