We can all admit to spending too much time on Facebook. This is a lot more evident when you have work to do. Reading that business report or putting the final touches on that important presentation seems to take a backseat to Facebook. As a matter of fact, it’s often when there’s important work to do that it feels like we want to see what Facebook friends are up to, or want to post about that vacation. This might be inevitable, but this is one way you can make your Facebook experience more effective.
Filtering Friends
You know that Facebook friend – the one who is always posting about the minutia of what they’re eating or which reality TV show they’re watching. Despite the fact that they spend time muddling your Facebook news feed with the trivial, you would like to stay their Facebook friend. Do not fear, as there is a solution.
Facebook will let you restrict your news feed to things that you want to read. All you need to do is find an update from this prolific Facebook friend, click the arrow that will appear whenever you hover over that update with your cursor, then choose to “unsubscribe from status updates” from the menu that will appear.
Extending Messages, not Friendships
Here’s another nifty Facebook tip: You can send messages to people without sending them a friend request. Simply go to the Facebook page of the non-friends to which you want to send messages. Search for the “message” button on the upper-right corner of the page. People who let others send them messages without first befriending them will have this button.
Additionally, you can use Facebook Chat and connect it with external services. For instance, if you utilize Hotmail, you can use your Windows Live profile and integrate it with your Facebook account. This functionality is excellent if you want to talk to your online friends from your mail window. Yahoo messenger actually supplies a similar function – all you have to do is perform a search on Facebook for how you can achieve this integration.