4 Facebook habits to get on-board with in 2015

If you need any Facebook themed New Year’s resolutions, we pick 4 of our favourites.

Can you think of anymore? Let us know in the comments below.

Avoid Clickbait

Scammers and spammers are increasingly using the successful “click-bait headline” technique on Facebook and this is likely to continue well into 2015.

Click-bait (or “engagement-bait”) posts are those links you see on Facebook with headlines that lure you into clicking them or engaging on the post by liking or commenting on it. Posts with high click/engagement rates will become more visible across Facebook and thus reach more people.

Creating a headline that lures a reader into reading the story or engaging the post is actually a legitimate social media technique being used by most social media savvy companies, including ourselves. However some people take the technique too far, and if the headline or description is designed to over-hype the content or mislead the reader, then you’re moving into the realm of click-bait spam.

For example, if we were to post this article onto Facebook with the headline “4 things you absolutely MUST do or almost certainly get your Facebook account HACKED” then we could be guilty of click-bait spamming ourselves, since it’s not really an accurate portrayal of the article content.

Click-bait headlines are designed to be controversial or enticing, usually both, since this is likely to garner clicks and comments. So if you see a link you’re sure is click-bait, don’t click it – or if you do and it’s not what you expect, avoid engaging the post on Facebook.

Be careful posting onto Facebook Pages

If there is something we’re constantly getting confused queries about the most, its users complaining Facebook are violating their privacy by making their posts and comments [and replies to comments] they post onto Facebook Pages visible to all their friends.

And this is really a fallacy that we should be clearing up for good in 2015, since there is no violation here at all. It doesn’t matter what privacy options you select for your status updates/photos in your Privacy Settings, this only applies to YOUR timeline. If you post photos or post to a Page, they are public. Not only that, but your friends are likely to see the “story” in their Facebook real-time ticker (e.g. John Smith commented on ThatsNonsense.com’s post)

The same applies to posting onto the Walls of your friends who have the Public privacy option selected. These posts are also made public and liable to turn up in the tickers of your friends.

Bottom line – if you want to post something onto a Facebook Page that you don’t want your Facebook friends to see, don’t do it!

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Understand what makes an effective warning

Facebook can act as a great way to spread warnings, such as a trending crime, a missing person or a dangerous criminal. But understanding what makes an effective warning is important.

Okay, the most important thing, perhaps, is if a warning is correct and contains accurate, legitimate information. But accuracy is not the only important thing – an effective warning needs other attributes to be helpful.

Nearly every type of trending warning will need an expiry date. For example trending crimes come and go, missing people get found, dangerous people get caught.

Most warnings that circulate social media have an expiry date, a date where they are no longer relevant, and thus the date should always be included. A location is also usually relevant, since warnings are often localised to specific areas.

Finally a source, whether it’s a reputable media report or a police announcement, would help verify a warning and remove the chance that the sharer is passing on false information. A source also helps readers know when the warning has become outdated.

Passing on warnings without this information is often not going to be helpful, and adding this information isn’t difficult. Understanding what makes an effective warning is important – it gives you the chance not only to verify the veracity of a warning, but gives the user the ability to change the warning for the better.

Understand that Facebook can get you fired

In a re-occurring topic of late on our site, we once again reiterate that the confines of your personal social media account can easily and often overspill past your group of friends, and this increasingly means finding its way to the attention of your boss.

The number of people getting fired or otherwise reprimanded for their Facebook activity is on the increase, and we as a civilisation are still very much getting used to balancing the line between what we can post onto our Facebook accounts and how that affects our professional lives.

Jobs often now come attached to social media policies as the business world starts tackling this tricky issue, but you can get a head start by learning how to minimise the chances of landing yourself in trouble.

This includes the basics, such as locking down your privacy settings and perhaps thinking twice about Facebook-friending your boss. But it also includes being careful about what you post onto the site, especially on public walls or Pages. Be careful with whom you associate yourself with on the site and think twice about including your place of work on your personal details.

Can you think of any more good New Year’s resolutions for Facebook? Let us know below or on our Facebook Page here.