Daily News and Articles: Articles by Amy-Mae Elliott

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Monday, October 15, 2012

How to Hide Pinterest Activity on Facebook

by Amy-Mae Elliott

1. Edit Your Settings

If you've enabled Facebook to auto-post your Pinterest activity, it's easy to change your Pinterest account settings.

Just hover over your name on the top-right of the screen. Select "Settings" from the menu that appears.

2. Change Facebook Timeline Settings

Now, scroll down until you see the Facebook settings section.

Where is reads "Add Pinterest to Facebook Timeline," select "Off."

You have now stopped Pinterest from automatically posting to Facebook.

3. Change the App Settings

Alternatively, you can edit the settings of the Pinterest Facebook app so that it only shows your Pinterest content to certain people -- either individuals or lists you have created.

To set this up, click the drop-down menu at the top-right of your Facebook homepage.

Choose "Account Settings," then "Apps" on the left hand-side of your display.

Scroll down your apps list until you see Pinterest. Once you click it, you'll see the "Posts on your behalf" section.

A little lower down, next to where it reads "Who can see posts this app makes for you on your Facebook timeline?" click on the "Friends" box.

4. The Pinterest App

If you now select "Custom," you can manually enter names of people you know would like to see your Pinterest content, or enter the name of a pre-made list.

You can also select people you'd like to hide your Pinterest content from by entering their names in the "Hide this from" box.

5. Opt in to Manually Send to Facebook

Even if you have stopped auto-sharing to Facebook from your Pinterest account, you can still send the occasional Pinterest post to Facebook.

To do this, simply tick the "Facebook" box as you use the Pinterest bookmarklet tool.

6. Share to Facebook

Or hit the "Share to Facebook" option after you've clicked on the "Pin It" button.

This also gives you more options, such as the ability to create the custom privacy options we outlined in slide four.

7. Your Pinterest Activity in Your "Recent Activity"

If you do choose to share the odd Pinterest pin to Facebook, you will see your Pinterest activity show up in the "Recent Activity" module on your timeline.

8. Remove Pinterest Content From Your News Feed Altogether

If you'd rather not see any kind of Pinterest content from people you are friends with on Facebook, you can mute the entire platform.

It's easy to do this: Simply find a Pinterest post and hit the small arrow on the top right.

Select "Hide all by Pinterest" and your news feed will become a pin-free zone.

Remove Pinterest Content From Your News Feed Altogether

9. Mute Certain Facebook Users

If Pinterest isn't a huge issue in your feed in general, but there are a few people who post excessively, you can "mute" those loud few, rather than stop seeing Pinterest content altogether.

To stop seeing Pinterest content from one contact, find a recent Pinterest-related post from that person and click on the small drop-down arrow on the top-right.

Select "Unsubscribe from activity stories/music and videos (this changes dependant on the nature of the content) by NAME" and those kind of posts will not appear in your stream in the future.

Pinterest‘s social integration is very well-done, and has contributed to the fast growth of the sharing service. However, you may not want to broadcast everything you do on Pinterest to your Facebook friends. Similarly, you might not be interested in every single thing your Facebook acquaintances pin.

We can help you out. Our simple walkthrough gallery demonstrates how to stop Pinterest from posting on Facebook, how to tailor your settings so you only share Pinterest content with certain people, and how to prevent others’ Pinterest-related posts from cluttering up your news feed.

10 Facebook Tips for Power Users

by Amy-Mae Elliott

1. View Photos Full-Screen

You can browse Facebook photos in full-screen mode, making for a better gallery viewing experience.

In an album, click on the first image, then hover over the photo. A floating menu will appear along the bottom of the image.

Click on "Options" and you'll see the ability to "Enter Fullscreen." Now you can browse with a clean, black background.

To return to normal mode, simply hit the Escape key or the "X" on the top-right of your display.

2. Hide What You Read

If you like Facebook's new social reading apps, but don't want to broadcast to the world what you read on your coffee break, adjust the settings accordingly.

For apps that you're already using, head to "Account Settings" from the drop-down menu next to "Home" at the top-right of your display. Go to the "Apps" tab.

Now click "Edit" to the right of the relevant app. In the box that opens you'll see "Posts on your behalf - Who can see posts this app makes for you on your Facebook timeline?"

Use the drop-down menu to select "Only me." You can also follow this same process as you sign up to new apps.

3. Create a List Based on Your Interests

Have you taken advantage of Facebook's "Lists" functionality?

Similar to Twitter lists, you can create lists based on your interests and then tune in for a targeted catch-up on certain topics.

To create your first list, simply click "More" next to the "Interests" section on your homepage menu. Click "Add Interests," then "Create List."

Your lists can be comprised of people, subscriptions and friends. Once created, you can choose to make them private to you, or share them with the world.

Create a List Based on Your Interests in facebook

4. Populate Your Map With Pics

You can retrospectively add locations to images you've already uploaded to Facebook, making for an interesting map that shows all the places you've been.

To populate your map with photos, click on the "Photos" box under your cover photos and select "Add Photos to Map."

You will then be able to scroll through all your images and add the relevant geo data.

There's more information about adding imagery to your Facebook map here.

5. Reposition Photos on Your Timeline

If you want your timeline to look as lovely as possible, you can fine tune how your images appear.

If an image is off-center or you can't see the main focus of the photo, reposition it to look better.

Click the "Edit or Remove" pencil icon on the top-right and select "Reposition Photo." Click and drag it until it's in a better position.

6. Hide From Friends In Facebook Chat

There's bound to be a few people you'd rather not chat with on Facebook. Hiding, or appearing to be offline to certain friends, is simple.

Just click on that person's name in the chat window, as if you were about to start a conversation, then hit the cog icon in the top-right.

From the menu, click "Go Offline to [Name]." You are now hidden.

A more detailed walk-through of this process can be found here.

7. Pre-Approve All Tags

Did you know you can set your Facebook account to require pre-approval before any tagged content appears on your timeline?

To set this up, select "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down menu on the top-right of your Facebook page.

Next to "Timeline and Tagging," click on "Edit Settings."

Look down for "Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline" and "Review tags friends add to your own posts on Facebook" -- set these both to "on."

We have previously offered a more detailed look at this process. It can be found here.

8. Hide Annoying Content From Your News Feed

What appears in your Facebook news feed is subject of much discussion, but you can control it, to a certain extent.

From the homepage, click on the pencil icon that appears when you hover over "News Feed," and select "Edit settings."

Here you can hide posts coming into your stream from certain people, certain apps and certain pages.

If you really want to drill down to customize your news feed, we have previously offered some useful tips here.

Hide Annoying Content From Your News Feed

9. Create a Secret Group

You can create a "secret" Facebook group that only you, and the friends you choose to share it with, can view. It's a fun way to share members-only content with a select few.

To start your secret group, click "More" next to the "Groups" area on your homepage. Select "Create Group" on the next page that loads.

Once you've named your group, choose a fun icon from the drop-down menu, add friends and then check the "secret" option.

You will now see your new group under the "Groups" area in your homepage. Click on it to post to the group and view content from others.

10. Upload Images in High Quality

Finally, Facebook's default photo upload functionality is not high resolution.

If you want to ensure your images are the best quality possible, always check the "High Quality" box as you upload.

It will take a little longer, but the better images should be worth the wait.

Facebook is a platform like any other — with a little practice you can get really good at using it. To help you out, we have pulled together 10 tips that we think will be useful for “power users” of the social network.

Whether you want to make your timeline look better, fine-tune what appears in your news feed, or create a secret Facebook group, we hope there’s a tip here that will improve your Facebook experience.

10 Tips and Tricks for Powerful Twitter Search

by Amy-Mae Elliott

1. Understanding Twitter Search Results

Twitter search results are divided into sections. On the left, you can toggle between these categories: Tweets, People, Videos and Images.

These results are determined by Twitter's search algorithms, as are the "top" tweet results.

In Twitter's words, "We've built an algorithm that finds the tweets that have caught the attention of other users. Top Tweets will refresh automatically and are surfaced for popularly retweeted subjects based on this algorithm. We do not hand-select Top Tweets."

For this reason, if you're looking for an at-a-glance look at a topic, Top Tweets is the way to go. If you're carrying out a more stringent search, be sure to click "All."

2. Remove Retweets From Results

You can get retweet-free search results by adding the minus sign search operator.

Simply enter -RT to see a list of original results — handy if you're searching for a popular term.

3. Location-Based Search

You can look for tweets that come from or are near to a certain location.

Type near:NYC within:5mi to return tweets sent within five miles of the Big Apple.

4. Search For Tweets With Links

If you want to only see tweets that contain links, add filter:links to your search phrase.

5. Search for Tweets From a Certain User

If you want to carry out a keyword search for one particular person, type from:username to search within his or her stream.

6. Positive, Negative and Questions

If you want to look up results based on sentiment, simply add :) or :( to your search.

Similarly, you can look for tweets that pose a question by adding a question mark to your search query.

7. Search Up To/From a Date

It's possible to search Twitter for content up to and after certain dates.

Typing since:2012-09-20 will show tweets sent since Sept 20, 2012, while until:2012-09-20 will show those sent up to the same date.

8. Search for Tweets From Certain Sources

If you'd like to see tweets sent via SMS, or from a particular Twitter client, you can use the "source" search operator to do so.

For example, source:txt will bring up tweets sent via SMS.

9. Save Searches

Did you know you can save up to 25 searches on Twitter?

Simply enter the search term you'd like to save, hit enter, then click on the cog icon at the top-right of your screen.

Hitting Save search means you can access that query again simply by clicking in the search box and selecting from the drop-down menu that will appear.

10. Bookmark Twitter's Advanced Search

Finally, if you don't think you'll remember all the search operators, there's an easy fix.

You can just bookmark Twitter's Advanced Search page, where many of these search elements are templated for ease of use.

With over 2,000 new tweets posted every second, there’s a heck of a lot of information to wade through onTwitter, especially if you’re looking for something specific.

If you want to get valuable Twitter search results, you need to learn the best strategy for finding that content in the first place. We have pulled together 10 useful tips and tricks for searching the microblogging platform, including how to find tweets by location and how to save searches for future reference.