Facebook Tips.. general tips.

Facebook is now (I think) the most popular social network in the United States, and is growing rapidly elsewhere. It’s connecting people of seemingly all ages, and yet somehow has managed not to be terribly creepy.

For many people, Facebook’s usefulness comes from the fact that just about everyone they know is a user. It’s an easy way to contact or check up on someone, and is a hub for a lot of people’s social lives, both on and offline.

I’m an avid Facebook user, and over the last couple of years have figured out a number of things that Facebook can do, and that you can do with Facebook, that most people don’t know about.

Here are a few tips, tricks and tools to make Facebook an even more critical tool in your life.

GooFace

One of my favorite things about Facebook is its “Events” page, where people create and invite their friends to various parties, events, etc. It’s a great way of using your Facebook as a party planner- no need for Evite or anything like that. With the “Facebook Events to Google Calendar” Greasemonkey script, you can view your Facebook events list in your GCal, and be always up to date with your Events. You can also subscribe to your friends’ birthdays with fbCal, which can be accessed in Google Calendar. No more awkward forgetting of birthdays!

Phonebook

I’ve been invited to “I dropped my phone in the toilet- need your numbers!” groups more times than I’d care to count. Seriously- how hard is it not to drop your phone in the toilet? Instead of inviting the world to yet another group, try Facebook’s Phonebook feature. From your Facebook account, select “Settings,” and the the “Mobile” tab. Make sure you activate Facebook Mobile, whether you intend to use it or not. Once it’s ready, click “Go to Facebook Mobile.” Then, click the “Phonebook” link at the top of the page in order to see the phone numbers of all your friends on Facebook.

Stay Private

The privacy settings of Facebook, essentially who sees what on your profile, are enormously flexible. You can select people who can and cannot see almost every aspect of your profile, from pictures to personal information. By clicking “Settings” and “Privacy Settings” you can edit who can see your information, who can find you in a search, and what is published about you on your Mini-Feed. You can also designate some friends as “Limited,” which means they can only see certain pieces of your profile. Many people don’t do so, but privacy settings should always be customized to your personal needs.

Facebook Connect

All over the Web now, you can log in to other applications with your Facebook account. Applications can learn your information or your interests based on your Facebook profile, and many of them become more useful with Facebook. Not only do you only have to remember one username and password (your Facebook one), but you can log in and do more on many other applications with Facebook Connect. For more, check out this post on Facebook’s blog.

Your Own Web Page

Facebook is one of the easiest places on the Web to create your own personal website. By creating a “Page,” as Facebook calls them, you can create a site for your favorite blogs, people, things, or whatever else you can think of. You can add a picture, add information, invite people, and bring your Facebook crowd in on your interests or favorite things. It’s also a great place to shamelessly promote yourself to the Faceiverse.

Facebook IMified

Facebook Chat is steadily improving and gaining in popularity. I currently have over 100 friends online on Facebook Chat, which is a lot of people who are easy to get in touch with. The chat interface on the Facebook site is terrible, though- use Meebo or Digsby instead, as they both have great integration with Facebook Chat. They leverage the contacts from Facebook, but in a much better way.

AnywhereBook

As Facebook gets more pervasive and more widely-used, users want to be able to access it from anywhere. Facebook now has a mobile site, an iPhone app, a Blackberry app, a Firefox toolbar, an iGoogle gadget, and a huge number of other ways to access Facebook without navigating to the website. For more, try searching Facebook’s applications list.

FaceTwitter

Linking Facebook with Twitter recently got a lot easier- with the Twitter application from Facebook, you can update your Facebook status every time you send a tweet. To avoid the irritating and overpowering number of tweets you might send, the app ignores any tweet starting with “@”, the symbol for a reply in Twitter. If you’re looking to do the opposite thing (update in Facebook, send to Twitter), try Twitterbook. It takes a bit of setup, but easily sends your Facebook updates over to Twitter.

Are you on Facebook? How do you use it?