Facebook Friend Lists…the basics for midlife new media newbies

Hi, As we continue to work with those of you midlife, second half career, new media newbies who are interested in using Social Media to help you connect for your business and for friends/family, I continue to reminded that Facebook with all of its changes, has NOT made it clear as HOW to sort Friends by their type of association with you.

So, you want to send a note to your family members about an upcoming family reunion or an update about another family member? Of course, you do NOT want to send this note to your business connections, right?

Well using the Facebook "Friends List" tool is the way to do this.  With the new Facebook changes, Friends Lists have become more powerful in that you can also use them to filter your news feeds from people.

So, If I want to see the updates on my "Midlife New Media Newbie Friends".  I can click on that Friend List (that I created) on my Facebook Home Page and voila, I will see those "news" items only.

Sounds easy?  Well it is….ONCE you FIND how to create these lists.  It IS easy once you see it.

When you navigate around your Facebook page and "hover" over different menu items, you will NOT see a place to access or adjust these lists.  I don't know why Facebook has not made this more intuitive to us all, but oh well.

Here is how you do it:  On your Facebook homepage, you will see the word "Friends" in the upper left horizontal navigation list (Right after the words, "Facebook", "Home" and "Profile").  If you hover over the word "Friends" you will see a variety of options (none of which is "Friend Lists").  HOWEVER, JUST CLICK on that word "FRIENDS".  When you do, you will see the Friend Lists screen open up for you.

Here you can then create lists and then in the box at the center, just start typing the name of existing Friends on Facebook and you can add them to your list.

Here is an illustration that might help:

I do suggest creating these lists as you first use Facebook and then move new Friends into the appropriate list as you add them.  I think it would be difficult to have 1000 Friends and then try to assign them all to various groups.

But, you can imagine that over time, as your Friends grow on Facebook, you will have very nice lists to send messages to about appropriate topics for that group….very handy!

FYI, we are holding another tele-session today at Noon Central….Facebook, What's New, What's Easy.  We will cover the new Facebook format changes and what are the basic steps to use Facebook simply for small business owners.

You can register for the live session or the replay at: http://newprimetime.com/registerbigpic8/

Have a great day!

Barb