6 Top Facebook Tricks You Need To Know Now

Facebook Tricks You Need To Know But Probably Never Knew

Facebook is a social media site that has millions of users across the globe. Millions of Users, and you really think they know everything about Facebook? Silly, there’s so much knowledge to be gained. Welcome to Y3llowl4bs, and I will show you how to use Facebook like a pro.

Now, let’s start with the basics. I know you’re thinking, “I already know this stuff!” But trust me, there are always a few things that even the most experienced Facebooker doesn’t know. And these tips will help keep your account safe and secure while giving you more power than ever before.

Facebook is a huge site, and it seems that everyone knows all of its ins and outs. But they don’t. There’s so much to be learned about the secrets of this social media platform. Here are just a few tips that can really change your Facebook experience.

Get Credentialed (and Protected) as a Journalist

Here’s a tip for journalists, freelance writers, and other reporters who use Facebook to research stories or keep up with the news:

In June 2020, Facebook launched Journalist Registration in an attempt to verify credentials, and protect journalists on the platform while they were reporting current events.

It’s available to both staff and freelancers, but you do need an email address that is associated with a professional organization or newsroom. That organization’s Facebook Page must be registered as a News Page and verified by Facebook before you are allowed access.

Once registered as a Journalist, you’ll get:

Enhanced account safety and protection.
Content insights (much like how Instagram business insights work).
Updates on special features as they’re released.

It’s free, and it requires you to provide some information. To apply, go to Settings, then Journalist Resources on the left menu. That’ll take you to this landing page:

Retrieve messages from long lost friends, or maybe the creeps!

Many people are unaware that Facebook has an automated filtering system for messages.

Notifications will be given only for messages received from your contacts; other messages from people who are not on your contact list and with whom you don’t have any mutual friends will go into the “Other” folder without a notification.

In all likelihood, this folder will contain promotional messages, spam, and maybe even a few creepy messages from stalkers—especially if you are female.

It’s easy to forget that you have friends and family who are not as close to you as the ones in your Normal folder. The “Other” folder can be a reminder of this fact since it contains messages from people outside your main circle of contacts.

Delete Facebook Account for Good!

For some people, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends. For others, it’s just a distraction from their everyday lives.

If you have never used your Facebook account and do not plan to use it in the future, deleting the account completely makes more sense than simply letting your profile “catch dust” (i.e., go unused).

To completely delete your account and go off the Facebook radar, choose one of the following options. Go to Settings > Security > Deactivate your Account.

Once you’ve clicked through to the deactivation page, select a reason for leaving and then confirm your choice. If you own Facebook pages, this step will also pop up: unless one of these people is made an admin on your pages before they’re disconnected from yours (however temporarily), those pages won’t be able to appear in search anymore.

Although deactivating your Facebook account will remove most of its functions and make it unavailable to others, you can still choose to receive emails if you get tagged in friends’ photos or invited groups. Check the box next to “Keep me signed in” so that these alerts remain available after deleting your profile

Sync your Facebook Calendar with Google Calendar

You would probably call your Google Calendar the modern-day equivalent of a secretary, wouldn’t you? That is how important the app has become for most people. Have you unsuccessfully tried to link one of your Facebook calendar events to another platform like Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook?

It is actually a piece of cake! Follow the steps below.

Go to the Facebook Events page. Select an upcoming event and click Edit Options (on mobile, tap More). Then choose Export Event from the list of options that appears.

Once you have copied the address, head on over to your Google Calendar. On the left hand tab, you will see an option called Other Calendars. Click on the drop down arrow next to it and then choose “Add by URL” as shown below.

That’s it. Your Facebook Calendar event is now neatly synced into your Google Calendar, with all the details you had on Facebook.

Download a Copy of All Your Facebook Data

Yes. All of it.

Facebook now makes it super easy to:

Download every post, like, message, follower, poke, photo… anything you’ve ever touched or created on the platform.
Access your facial recognition data.
Discover what Facebook’s business partners have shared with them about you (Off-Facebook Activity).
Manage what information about you is there.

If you’re like me and have had Facebook forever, it will take several minutes to download all of it. But if you’re serious about cleaning up your social media once and for all, it’s worth it.

To access this treasure trove of personal data, go to Settings, then Your Facebook Information.

(Your facial recognition data is located on its own tab in the left menu.)

Use Facebook search operators

Searching Facebook for competitive intel can be tricky, especially since the platform got rid of Graph Search. However, Facebook search operators let you filter Google search results for information specific to the social networking site.

Here are a few ideas for how Facebook search operators can help you optimize your marketing campaigns:

Research your audience. Understanding your audience and the type of content they like will help you publish more engaging content.
Find user-generated content (UGC). Search for your brand name to find people who mentioned your brand but didn’t tag you.
Research your competitors. Look at the content your competition shares, how much engagement they get, and what their audience looks like. Identify new competitors in your area.
Find content to share. Search topics or phrases to identify content your audience will engage with.

To use Facebook search operators, you’ll need to rely on Boolean searches through Google.

How do these work?

Boolean operators are terms that let you broaden or narrow down search results. For example, you could use ‘AND’ to search for two search terms at the same time.

How to do it:

1. For identifying relevant content and businesses, use site:Facebook.com [topic]

Type site:Facebook.com [house plants] into the Google Search Bar

Because you’ve specified the site, your Google results will only include Facebook pages that contain your search terms.

For example, if you own a house plant store, you could use this search command to find the top-performing Facebook Pages and Groups about house plants:

2. For identifying local competitors, use site:Facebook.com [business type in location]

Type into the Google Search Bar site:Facebook.com [home interior store in Seattle]

For example, if you run a home interior store in Seattle, you could use this Facebook search command to see what your direct competitors are doing.

A list of home interior stores in Seattle will then appear in the SERPs:

This is an exact search match, so Google won’t return results that deviate even slightly. Search results for “home interior stores in Seattle” versus “home interior store in Seattle” could be different.

Conclusion

I really hope this list helps you find what you are looking for, and I know that it is more than a little bit nerdy. But hey, there’s really nothing wrong with being a little nerdy about something. It just means that you are passionate about it. And I think we can all agree that being passionate about something is a good thing.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!