Facebook can get a lot of flack at times but the reality is that when used correctly it's head and shoulders above it's social networking peers. 

A little bit of extra know how can make your usage of the platform a lot more enjoyable. Here's six of the best tips and tricks that will make your social media life that much easier. 

 

1. Schedule Birthday Messages

You're a busy person we get it. Even if Facebook sends you notifications you can still forget people's birthdays. Therefore why not schedule it in advance so you don't have to remember on the day?

You need to connect your account to BirthdayFB.com and import your friends list but when you do you can tee up your messages in advance and not have to worry about it again. Until next year....

 

2. Or get rid of Birthday Notifications altogether

If your friends are really important to you then you'll remember yourself. As for everyone else? Well we're sure they'll be getting enough birthday love elsewhere not to notice you're missing. 

Go into your settings. Click on notifications and then the On Facebook icon. There you’ll be given the option to completely switch off birthday notifications forever (or well until you want to switch them back on again.)

 

3. Play games in Messenger 

Did you know you can play Chess and Basketball in Messenger? You need to have the most recent update of the app to do it. 

For Basketball you just need to type in the basketball emoji and type on it to begin the game. 

 

For Chess, type the phrase ‘@fbchess play’ into chat and it’ll start a game for you.

 

4. Find out who called you

It's happened to all of us at some point. We lose our phones and our contacts and then an old friend texts but we don't know who it is and are too embarrassed to ask. All you need to do is search for the owner of the number through Facebook. Just enter the number into the Facebook search bar. Of course you need to be friends with the person for this to work and it does require the texter to have their number connected to Facebook mind but chances are they will. 

 

5. Block people from chatting to you on chat

If there's a particular friend that is getting on your nerves in chat to the point of harassment but you still want to be seen as online for other friends then you can customise who gets to see that you're online. 

Then you just need to type in the name of the friend that you want to appear as offline to.

 

6. Remotely log out of Facebook

If you've managed to get by without being fraped at least once then we tip our hat to you. For the rest of us. Here's a way to double check that you didn't leave yourself logged into the laptop you let your housemate borrow. 

Go to into 'Security Settings' and then down to 'Where Your Logged In'. It will show you a list of all (if any) current sessions where you're signed into Facebook. You can then end whatever session you like. 

Via Metro