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What You Need To Know About
the Recent Facebook Changes
By Robyn Sharp
Facebook is the number one social
network and one of the most visited
sites on the Internet, but that
doesn’t mean that it isn’t confusing at
times. In fact, it can be extremely confusing
to the casual user because Facebook
likes to make changes to its website pretty
often. But when you’re at the top of the
technology field, it’s important to stay
ahead of the curve.
While Facebook has continued to add
new features and grow its user base with
these changes, they’ve also upset a lot of
people who just don’t like it when everything
gets moved around. It’s confusing,
time-consuming, and gets people frustrated
very quickly. But, since Facebook
continues to be a free service, there isn’t
a whole lot that can be done about it except
adapt!
Below is a recap of some of the recent
changes and what you need to know
about them in order to make Facebook
work for you and your agency.
First, you’ll be glad to know that none
of these changes have affected your
Facebook Business Page. So if you have
a separate page for your agency, it has
remained exactly the same. Everything
else applies only to your personal page
and what you see when you first login to
Facebook.
The Ticker
You’ve probably noticed the Ticker on
the right hand side of your page. It’s hard
to miss because it is constantly moving!
It contains activity stories from your
friends including comments, events, status
updates, pictures, links, and videos.
The Ticker is set up in real-time and
shows what is happening on a second
by second basis. If something catches
your eye, you can click on it directly in
the Ticker and comment or view without
leaving your Home page which is a
nice feature. You won’t see any of this
information in your main News Feed because
it is generally not as important or
relevant to you. There is currently no way
to turn off the Ticker.
Smart Lists
Facebook also decided that you might
want to sort your friends into categories
or groups so that you can control your privacy
and share relevant information with
specific people. You automatically have
several groups included by default. You’ll
see them in the Lists sections on the lefthand
side of your Home page. These lists
include Work (people with the same employment
listing that you have), School
(based on high school and college), Your
City, and Family (if you’ve previously indicated
you were related to someone).
You can also sort your friends into lists for
Close Friends and Acquaintances.
Why would you want everyone sorted
into lists When you create a new status
update, you can easily select which list it
is shown to. You’ll see this option at the
bottom of the Status Update box right
next to the share button. So if you want
to share information with just family or
close friends, you can select those lists.
If you currently accept clients as personal
Facebook friends or like to do a lot of
networking, this could be a good option
for you. You could create a Client
list and then only share business-related
information with that list. They wouldn’t
see your kids’ photos or your recent vacation
status; only the information that
you chose to share with the Client list.
It gives you more privacy while still being
able to connect with more people and
increase your marketing exposure.
The News Feed
Perhaps the most controversial of the
recent changes were the adjustments to
the News Feed. In the past, you could
easily switch between Top News and
Most Recent News which made it pretty
easy to keep up. Now, everything is
40 — Exclusivefocus Winter 2011/2012