What is the scoop on the new Facebook Smart Lists? Some people think they are creepy since they automatically choose people to be on your lists. But I think they are kind of handy. Here are four things you need to know about them.
1. They are private. Just like the other Friends Lists you may have created, no one will see who is on these lists. If you add someone to your Family list or to your Friends who Work With You list, they will get notified and have to approve the fact that you are Family Members or Co-workers (watch the video to see how that works). But only your current connections can add you to Lists.
2. You can Merge them with an existing list. You may have already created a list that has your college friends or local people in your area and now you have two. You don’t want two of the same lists. So if you click on the list, then Manage List in the upper right, you have some options. Unfortunately you can’t delete the new list, but you can hide it if you choose.
3. The lists are self-updating. Now it’s not going to update your Close Friends. Luckily Facebook hasn’t gotten to the point where it’s actually choosing your friends for you. But it will give you suggestions on who to add based on who you interact with. It will update your school lists and your local friends. I think that’s handy, so you don’t have to remember to add those people.
4. You can expand your local region to include more people. The default on the local area is 10 miles. If you want a larger region, just go into the list and click on the miles to change it. I love that you don’t have to figure out who lives near you.
Watch my handy tutorial on Facebook Smart Lists so you can get all the details. And tell me what you think about these new Lists in the comments below!
Thanks Grandma! It was recommended that I get a public figure page – would this work just as well since my personal info is protected? How do I distinguish in my posts between personal and subscribed?
Cheri, this refers to Lists only. So if you were going to use the Subscribe button instead of a Fan Page, all you would need to do is sign up for the Subscribe feature at http://www.Facebook.com/about/subscribe and then just watch how you are posting, make posts Public or just use your lists to post more private posts to friends. Take a look at my previous post on the Subscribe button for more info : https://www.andreavahl.com/facebook/the-facebook-subscribe-button.php
But I think you would benefit from allowing subscribers and keeping your Victory Circles Fan page. Hope that all makes sense!
Cheri, this refers to Lists only. So if you were going to use the Subscribe button instead of a Fan Page, all you would need to do is sign up for the Subscribe feature at http://www.Facebook.com/about/subscribe and then just watch how you are posting, make posts Public or just use your lists to post more private posts to friends. Take a look at my previous post on the Subscribe button for more info : https://www.andreavahl.com/facebook/the-facebook-subscribe-button.php
But I think you would benefit from allowing subscribers and keeping your Victory Circles Fan page. Hope that all makes sense!
Dear, Grandma Mary
I have a quick question… How can I delete the Work & School suitcase, smart lists? I can create them, but it does not allow deletion. I don’t like, even with the hidden, extra lists that don’t go to anything. I doubt I am the only one with this problem.Please Help,Matt
Dear, Grandma Mary
I have a quick question… How can I delete the Work & School suitcase, smart lists? I can create them, but it does not allow deletion. I don’t like, even with the hidden, extra lists that don’t go to anything. I doubt I am the only one with this problem. Please Help, Matt
Matt – I haven’t tested this but I believe if you Edit your Work and Education on your personal profile, and delete those positions, they will be deleted from the smart lists. So go into your Timeline or Profile Page and when I clicked Update Info, I could delete my employment positions. Let me know if that works. If you want to keep those up there, you can always just Hide the Smart lists. But I would suggest trying to tie any Employment positions to a Facebook Page if you can. Hope that helps!
Thank you, for such a quick response.
I can delete work & edu in edit profile, but the lists remain there on the home. I can youtube at the subject all day long, but it is always going around what this problem is. Right,… can’t delete smart lists. If you happen across anything like this problem, please add it to your page.
Page liked and thanks again.
Unfortunately that does NOT work. Once you put the information under school or work or whatever facebook makes the smartlist and you CANNOT get rid of the damn thing. This is one of the most idiotic features I have seen yet. I now have about 8 “smartlist” with no one in them and all I can do is “archive” them. As far as I know they will be there forever.
4-16-12) yet same problem , stupid facebook
5-23-12
same problem. facebook is s***
Hello Everyone. I am facing a New Frustrating Kind of Trouble Here. I have had a smart list Named to My University Now I can not Even manage or Archive That List. It Just Goes On To load Forever When I Click on That List and Its Automatically Adding People To Itself Not Allowing me to Remove or add anyone as It Can Not be Managed Anymore. I Even Tried Removing the relevant info from My Profile still The Smart List is There and Its Really The Most Ridiculous of all times that I can neither open the list nor manage it by any means. I have reported that to help center several times but they will probably be fixing it in my next life time.
Can Anyone Please Help Me With this?
Really a delete option wld be useful. why force us to accept these brainwaves , Facebook
I have email notifications set for close friends, but I do not get email notifications from family list members. Can you suggest what I can do to get email notifications for “Family”?
Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t have the e-mail setting available for the Family list notifications – I don’t know why?? Facebook is odd like that!
i accidently added someone on my smart list but i really didnt mean to. and i removed that person immediately. will that person still get the notification?
No they will not get a notification 🙂 Thankfully Facebook realized that wasn’t a good thing to notify them of
I have a list with 20 people on it, only I added one I didn’t mean to … for some reason when I go to look them up in the ‘see all’ link this person doesn’t appear in the list. When I count the number of people that that come up when I click on ‘see all’ there are only 18 people showing. Are you able to help? I can see this person is on the list as their image shows in the small thumbnails.
recently, two of my smart lists have had problems. my high school class list will show the number of posts i should be able to see when i click on the link, but when i click on it, it will say i have no comments. same thing about one of my college links. can someone on my list have somehow made it where i cannot see the posts of the others? i’ve asked fb and have not gotten an answer.