Time for a little Q + A!  The Social Kaboom question of the week comes from George in Alabama.  George asks: 

Last week, all of a sudden, the place where I update my status on Facebook changed.  Now it looks different and has other buttons, and I’m not really sure what’s going on.  Can you tell me?

Of course we can, George!  While at first it might appear that Facebook is just changing things for the sake of it (yet again), there are actually some really sound ideas behind the change to the status box — namely, better control over privacy and better integration of social features, like check-ins and tagging.

At first glance, the status box looks basically the same.

 

Once you click into the status field, though, the box expands and you can see it looks quite different.

 

As usual, you have a field in which to type your status.  Below that, everything is different!  On the left, you’ll see an icon of a person with a “+” symbol.  If you click this icon, a small field will appear above it that says “Who are you with?”  In that field, you can type the name of any friends you happen to be with at the time.  Once you post your status, it will be appended with “ — with Name of Person.”  Just to the right of that icon, you’ll see a place icon.  If you click it, another small field will appear, asking “Where are you?”  In that field, you can type the name of wherever you are.  Once you post your status, it will be appended with “ — at Place.”  If you choose to use both, your status will be appended with “— with Name of Person at Place.”

If you look to the right of both those icons, you’ll see “Public,” “Friends,” or “Custom” with an arrow next to it.  This is probably the most important change.  Now, with the easy click of a button (the arrow), you can choose whether to share that specific post with everyone (Public), just your friends or some unique combination thereof (Custom).  Facebook will also remember your selection and use it for your next post (unless you change it again).  This privacy setting is remarkably similar to Google+’s Circles, and makes selective sharing really easy.

So, there you have it!  Now you’re up to speed on Facebook’s new status box.  How do you like the new set up?  Tell us in the comments!

We know an awful lot about social media.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, LinkedIn — you name it, we know it.  As such, we get asked a lot of questions about social media.  Contrary to what you might expect, we love answering those questions!  So, we thought we’d start answering some here, too.

Q:  Can I get rid of posts on my Facebook homepage?

A: The posts that appear on your Facebook homepage (called your News Feed) are a realtime list of the things your friends are posting on Facebook.  While you can’t remove them from Facebook at large (because they’re not your posts), you can remove them from your News Feed so you don’t have to look at them anymore.  To remove a post, move your mouse over it and you’ll see a light blue X appear in the upper right hand corner.  Click the X and you’ll have several options, and they’ll differ depending on whether the post is from a friend, a page you like or a game your friends play.  Click “Hide this post” to remove it from your News Feed.  You can, instead, click “Hide all from…” to keep posts from that friend/page/game from appearing on your News Feed again.

Have a question?  Post it in the comments here or over on our Facebook page and we’ll answer it for you!