Facebook made some dramatic changes to their systems and user interface that once again created an uproar. It seems as though they completely re-code their GUI a few times a year without regard for user input. Furthermore, this last major change appeared to not be planned well at all, leaving mobile users without access for some time.
In light of these recent changes there are four things I want to cover that you need to know. Some need your attention immediately to prevent potential damage and others are helpful tips to make your use of Facebook smooth and inline with your goals.
Email Address Display
Facebook made a substantial change to how they display email addresses within user profiles just before the major user interface “upgrade” that was pushed on everyone. This change is significant and can harm you so pay attention!
Just a few months ago, Facebook displayed a user's email address within their profile as an image. This was done to prevent SPAM spiders and bots from easily screen scraping and capturing email address to be used in Spam emails. THIS HAS CHANGED. For whatever reason, Facebook has changed to now display a users email address as text, leaving many open to Spam.
So what should you do? Change your profile settings for your email display immediately to be a minimum of “Friends Only” view, and a maximum of “Only Me” view. Here’s how to do it.
1) Go to your Profile and click the “Info” tab.
2) Next to your email address click the “edit” button.
3) Then click the Lock icon and select the level of protection you wish to have. Again, I suggest either friends only or Me only to ensure your email address is not abused by people you don’t know.
Feed Display of Friends
Again for unknown reasons, Facebook now controls the number of friends (randomly it appears) whose posts appear in your news feed. The number of friends is capped at 250 automatically by the Facebook system.
If you are like me, you have more friends on Facebook than their 250 cap, and missing posts from some could be harmful to my reasons for using Facebook to begin with. Therefore, you need to increase this cap so as to see all stream posts from all of your friends. Here is how you change this setting.
1) Go to your Facebook home page (News Feed).
2) Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Edit Options” link.
3) Change the “Number of Friends” from the 250 default to 5000.
Your Profile Display Settings
If you use Facebook to network, conduct business or connect with people in specific industries as well as your friends, it is important to manage your profile settings appropriately. The default settings for profiles have changed so many times through the “upgrades” Facebook has done, that it is important to constantly check your settings.
So many times I notice a friend of mine has become a friend with someone and I click to view that persons profile only to see that their profile is “locked” down and not displaying their location, employer or website. That’s great for those who just social network to stay in touch with friends, but if you are using Facebook for business, you are missing opportunity to connect and meet others.
1) To edit your profile display settings, go to your profile and click the “Info” tab.
2) Click the “Edit” link next to the section you want to change your settings for.
3) Select the viewing options you want others to have. Again, click “Everyone” or “Friends of Friends” if your goal is to network with others you may not know yet.
Blocking Game Posts
One of the biggest advantages with the Facebook changes is the ability to block posts from annoying games in your news feed. Now if you play games and enjoy that sort of thing that’s great, however some people don’t and find the hundreds of posts beyond annoying.
If you want to remove posts from a game application, follow these steps.
1) Go to your News Feed and find a game post you’d like to block.
2) Hover on the right side of the post and a “Hide” button will appear.
3) Click the Hide button and it will give you three options.
4) Click the center button to block posts from that game application.
It has been said that if something doesn’t grow or change it’s dead. As with all changes we experience in life, some are bad, some are good and some just require us to change along with it. I hope you have found these tips helpful and enable you to be more effective with Facebook, while protecting you from any harmful affects of change.
