The Times They Are A-Changin’ (On Facebook)

You may have noticed that the computer whizzes over at Facebook, mysterious and secretive as they are, have been slowly but surely rolling out some major changes. We lowly Facebook users don’t usually get much of a heads-up on these kinds of things. But here at ASA, social media has become a large part of how we connect with our members, get new people interested in sailing, and spread the word about our sailing schools. So we don’t want our friends and fans sailing upwind. To that end, I’m going to try to explain some of Facebook’s quirks and get us all onto a nice broad reach.

1. The New Profile

Over the course of the past two months, Facebook has been switching everyone’s personal profile over to the “new” profile. If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve certainly seen this happen to your page. Now they’ve made the same change to business pages, such as ours. That’s it on the right. The new profile is (in my opinion) elegant, efficient, and kind of confusing. The tabs that used to be along the top are now on the left – Wall, Photos, Videos, etc. The posts on the Wall now appear “out of order.” Why they did this, and how they choose what order the posts should appear in, I have no idea. But when you come to our page and want to post something on the wall, don’t get upset if your post doesn’t appear immediately at the top. The Wall may look different to everyone, so you never know who might see your awesome sailing photo from the Bahamas, and really, that’s the magic of social media!

2. Why You Only See Updates From SOME Of Your Friends

This is Facebook at their most tricky. Ever wonder why the same group of people always comments on your posts and updates? Or why you never see updates from Bobbi Sue, but Joey is in your News Feed twelve times a day? Here’s the answer: Facebook only shows you updates from the people you interact with most. They try to whittle your hundreds of friends down to a manageable amount–and this can be good or bad. What if you like reading somebody’s updates, but you never comment or “like” them? Well, they might start to disappear. BUT NEVER FEAR! You can fix this. In your News Feed, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on “Edit Options.” A box will appear, and you can change the setting from “Friends and Page You Interact With Most” to “All Friends and Pages.”

3. Photos

Facebook has just launched a new way of viewing photo albums, involving a “pop-out” screen, which I can only describe as “bad.” It’s confusing to look at and every time I see it I think for a minute that my computer is broken. Sadly, as far as I know, there’s nothing we can do except hope that they improve it eventually. Viewing individual photos seems to be the same as ever, which is fine by me.

I hope this has helped you navigate the stormy seas of Facebook. Rest assured that whatever those crazy guys up in Silicon Valley dream up next, we will continue to provide a relevant, fun and interactive place for sailors. (And we’re doing the same thing on Twitter, too!)

If you have any questions about Facebook or anything else related to social media, drop me a comment and I’ll do my best to help!