Facebook introduced ‘Smart Lists’ to help users bring more organization and privacy to their Facebook experience. The ability to create Lists has been available for a very long time, but only a very small percentage of users utilized the feature. Lists offer great sharing and privacy benefits if used correctly. Facebook is hoping that “Smart Lists” will give users the nudge they needed to better embrace the benefits they provide.
As we covered in another post, Smart Lists automatically group people based on their common characteristics and is dynamically updated.
If you are in the majority, and have never used Lists on Facebook before, why not improve and better secure your Facebook experience?
Lists are now located in the left column and displayed with the heading ‘Friends.’ Clicking on the ‘Friends’ link takes you to the following page:
Here you can select a list just by clicking on it or create a new one. You can add friends and Facebook pages you have liked to specific lists, and your friends and Pages can be added to multiple lists. If you have a relative, who happens to be a close friend, and a gaming buddy, then you could add this person to all three lists.
You can really get creative in your list management. You can create a new list and name it anything you want. This is a great way to organize your friends and pages according to your relationships and interests.
If you have a lot of friends or have a lot of “likes” on Facebook, Lists give you a great way to clear the clutter on your Newsfeed and zone in on specific interests. You could create lists of the following interests and activities to zone in on that specific information:
- Major News Outlets
- Musicians and Bands
- Actors, Celebrities and Famous Personalities
- Favorite T.V. Shows and Movies
- Sports Teams
You get the idea…
The lists also serve another purpose when you are posting status updates and other items to your Wall. After you enter your status update, you can choose to share it with a specific list.
Also of note is the ‘Restricted’ List that appears at the bottom. This list can only see posts and profile information that you make public. It would be a good idea to put casual acquaintances, people you felt obligated to accept their friend request, etc. on this list.
If you aren’t a big fan of Facebook Timeline, then you can use lists to display posts from a particular friend or page in reverse chronological order.
As an example, we created a list called “Facecrooks” and just added our page to it. As you can see, the list shows our most recent posts similar to the old layout. This might get laborious to do for each page, but you could do it for your favorite pages that you visit often. (like ours) 
As you can see, creating lists can make time on Facebook more enjoyable, organized and private.
Recommended Resources
PRIVATE WiFi® is a Personal VPN that encrypts everything you send and receive. Don’t access Facebook from a public WiFi hotspot without it.
Do Not Track + is a FREE browser plugin created by Abine. This easy to install plugin keeps websites from tracking you. If you value your online privacy, then you should definitely take advantage of this free product.
BitDefender Safego is a Facebook application you can install that will scan your News Feed and help keep you safe from scams like this.
Action Alert | Free Parental Control offers a 100% free Internet safety solution designed for parents. There is also a Maximum Protection option for parents that need a more advanced set of tools.
