There are friends and then there are some special friends. Until now, Facebook has weighed them all on the same scale. In fact, Google Plus exploited this very weakness to great effect with its circles feature. However, that’s all set to change with Facebook’s new Smart List and Special Friend List. The underlying principle is simple – the one size fits all rule just doesn’t work when it comes to friendship so there got to be a way to treat friends differently.

In this post, I explain the new lists (Smart List and Special Friend List) in layman terms and how you can best leverage these to good effect.

Smart List

For those who are on Google+, Smart Lists are essentially the circles for Facebook. In fact, it’s one step ahead of G+ circles. Smart Lists automatically group your Facebook friends in these different categories: family, city, high school, college and work. All the people in your feed who listed that they went to your same school or college will automatically be added to those feeds, and all the people who list where they work will be added to your work friends group.

So, users are saved the hassle of being forced to add people in lists manually. The best part – you can turn it off and customize it as per your needs.

In this post, I express my opinion on how Facebook doubled its revenues and what your business can learn from it.

Special Friend List

IMO, Facebook has hit bull’s eye with this one. This was one of my biggest paint points on the world’s leading social network. I have lots of Facebook friends but my news feed is always cluttered with updates from not-so-close friends. With special friend list, users can now add friends to an “Acquaintances” list whose members will appear less frequently in the news feed, and a “Close Friends” list of people who will appear more frequently in news feed and whose updates will trigger notifications.

How to best use these lists?

It’s often said that “To change is difficult, but not to change is fatal”. And that’s especially true of social media where technology changes faster than we can imagine. As expected, a large number of Facebook users’ initial reaction is that they would rather stay away from these changes. However, a deeper introspection will reveal that these changes are indeed intended to make life easier on Facebook.

For a start, I’d recommend giving these lists a try. Once your smart list is setup, ensure that there are no discrepancies. If there are any, fix them right away in order to avoid later surprises.

Work Lists

Facebook actually prepares these lists for you. Make sure that the content you post to these lists isn’t overtly personal or objectionable. Further, if there’s stuff that you’d like to hide from your current and previous employers, make sure that you segregate these into 2 separate lists.

Close Friends

These are the people who matter most in your personal life. Be judicious in choosing your ‘close’ friends as your news feed will show more from those on your “Close Friends” list than from people in your “Acquaintances” list.

Share with the right people

When it comes to sharing information, I follow the golden rule – never tell people what they don’t need to know and never hide facts that they should know. Customize your lists if required to follow this principle and you can be rest assured that your privacy wouldn’t be breached.

What’s your opinion on Facebook’s recently announced lists? How do you plan to best use these lists? Please share your experience by leaving a comment.