1. Hide Your Online Status From Selected Friends:

So you want to use Facebook chat but don’t want some people to see your online status? Simply open up the Facebook Chat and click on Friends List. Start creating a new list called BlockList.

Once the list is created, add those friends to the list that you want to appear offline to. When the list is complete, hover your mouse to the little green icon adjacent to the list and click Go Offline. Bingo! You will now appear offline to everybody in the BlockList.

2. View a Friend’s Profile Without Messy Applications:

If you are like me, you often get annoyed by the dozens of silly applications that people have added to their profile. Here’s a Grease Monkey script that allows you to view any profile without all those applications. Remember: the Mozilla Firefox web browser is a prerequisite for running Greasemonkey.

3. Display Your Facebook Status On Your Wordpress Blog:

Want to display your Facebook status updates on your Wordpress blog? There is a plugin that does exactly that. StatusPress lets you display your status updates to a widget on your Wordpress blog.

4. Access Facebook Chat Through Your Desktop:

No need to go to Facebook.com if all you want to do is use Facebook chat. You can do it right from your desktop using clients like social.im , Adium or ChitChat.

5. Update Facebook Status From Firefox:

If you are a firefox addict you don’t need to use any other software to update your Facebook status. Simply install the FireStatus add-on and update your status right from your browser. You can also use the Facebook Toolbar to completely manage Facebook from your Firefox browser.

6. Create A Photo Collage From Pictures Of Your Facebook Friends:

Easily create a photo collage from profile pictures of all your Facebook friends using a simple Facebook app called Photo Collage.

7. Add A New friend But Hide It From Your Status Update:

A great tutorial by Tim Watson walks you through the process of hiding specific actions from your status updates.

8. Schedule Facebook Messages To Be Send Later:

If you want to schedule your Facebook messages to be send sometime in the future, Sendible is a great tool to do that. You can also use Sendible to schedule your status updates.

9. How To Share Flickr Photos On Facebook:

My Flickr is a Facebook application that lets you display your Flickr photos and photo sets on Facebook so your friends can view and comment on them without leaving Facebook.

10. How To Download Facebook Photo Albums:

Ever felt the need to download complete photo albums from Facebook. You can easily do it with either a Windows desktop application named FotoBounce or a great Firefox add-on FacePad.

11. Upload Photos On Facebook From Your Phone:

All the smart phones like iPhone and Blackberry make it simple to upload photos to your Facebook account but how would you do it if you have a regular phone? Here is a great tutorial to walk you through that.

12. Magic Circles On Facebook:

You might have heard about the Konami code that makes red blurry circles on your Facebook page. This might be one of the most popular Facebook hidden tricks. Here’s how to do it:

Press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter key then press up & down & Magic circles will appear!

To stop them simply reload your page.

13. Use Your Facebook Like A Pirate:

Do you love talking like a pirate? You can set your Facebook to appear like a pirate page by going into Current Language Settings and setting it to English (Pirate).

14. How To Insert Cool Symbols In Your Status Updates:

Make your status updates interesting by inserting cool symbols. Simply copying them from this list and pasting in your status updates.

15. Automatically Poke Friends That Poke You:

Don’t have enough time to poke back friends who poke you on Facebook? Automate it with a Grease Monkey script called Facebook Autopoke.

16. Upload Photos From PicasaTo Facebook:

Upload photos to your Facebook account directly from Picasa using the Picasa app for Facebook. You can also upload the Picasa captions and resize your photos before uploading them to Facebook.

17. Search Facebook Like A Pro:

Not everybody knows how powerful Facebook search is. Similar to any large search engine, Facebook search has a lot of advanced options to help you search like a pro. For example if you are looking for a person named John Marsh and filter your results down to only people who are married, you can try name: John Marsh status:married. A complete list of search tips for Facebook can be found here.

18. How To Update Facebook Status From Gmail:

Facebook gadget for Gmail allows you to update your Facebook status right from your Gmail.

19. How To Access Gmail From Facebook:

If you seldom have to leave Facebook just to go check your Gmail inbox, check out Fmail. It is a great application that lets you check your Gmail from within your Facebook inbox.

20. See Facebook Twitter style:

If you love Twitter more than Facebook, you can view your Facebook just like you view your Twitter using this grease monkey script.

21. Import Facebook Friends To Twitter:

FB140 is a simple tool that lets you find all your Facebook friends that are using Twitter so you can easily follow them.

22. Access Facebook From Microsoft Outlook:

This is a great tip for people attending colleges or working in places that block Facebook, but allow you access to Microsoft Outlook. Simple install the FBlook plugin and access Facebook from Outlook.

23. Display Your Facebook Status Upside Down:

This is a cool and fun trick. To display upside down status updates, simply head over to FlipText and type in your status. Then simply click on Flip Text and copy-paste the upside down text into your Facebook status box.

24. Update Facebook Status Using Twitter:

Wouldn’t you love to update your status on both Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Just install the Twitter application for Facebook. Once synced, your tweets including the #fb tag would automatically be posted as status updates on your Facebook.

25. Download Videos From Facebook:

Facebook has one of the largest collection of user uploaded videos.You can download most of the videos from Facebook by using a client like SpeedBit or DownFacbook.

Similar to Television advertisement, social media presence has become vital for any top brand. Most of them now have a Facebook page and a Twitter account that you can follow to stay connected. However, with hundreds of brands online, it is not easy to stand out from the crowd.

One of the ways to do that is to have a custom designed Facebook page that can attract visitors. For top brands who understand the importance of social media, this has become a top priority and it can be clearly seen in the effort put into the design of their pages.

In addition to using eye-catching graphics and easy-to-use layouts, they have also customized the navigation menu according to their brand. Following are some great examples where top brands have customized the design of their Facebook page to stand out:

1. Pizza Hut

2. Dominos

3. Victoria Secret

4. Red Bull

5. Chevy

6. McDonalds

7. American Eagle

8. Kraft

9. Dell

10. Harley Davidson

11. Star Bucks

12. Coca-Cola

Just like these examples illustrate, having an eye-catching and customized Facebook page engages the user at a much more personal level. It is also a great way to interact with the consumers by providing them with instant updates and asking their feedback about new developments.

Compared to these, a generic Facebook page does not stand out and does not reach out to the customer effectively. For a lot of people who spend most of their time on Facebook, these custom designed pages have a better chance to interact with them than even the brand’s website.

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networks and is rapidly becoming a powerful and cost effective portal, ideal for businesses and business professionals alike for establishing that ‘brand connection’ with the consumers. Below are some excellent Facebook Applications that can help businesses to grow using social media:

Lasso

Lasso is a Facebook application that allows business owners to reach out to new customers by creating and promoting deals on Facebook. These deals are then shared between Facebook friends, hence, attracting more traffic to the business.

Branded Promotions

Branded Promotions is a complete marketing solution for businesses on Facebook. It allows companies to create their own branded interactive promotions, including contests, coupons, sweepstakes, instant wins, gifting, quizzes, voting and giveaways. Using Facebook Connect combined with the power of the application, companies can simultaneously publish promotion campaigns on the designated “promotions tab” on the company’s Facebook page and on the company’s website.

Netcarnation Marketplace

Netcarnation Marketplace allows users to create virtual storefronts on Facebook and begin selling or promoting their products to millions of Facebook users. User’s storefronts will be available on their Facebook profile and can be searched as well.

Polls

Polls give business owners a chance to strike the pulse of fans with custom polls for their Facebook Pages. Polls are easy to create and analyze, with attractive graphs showing user responses across demographics.

ArtFire Kiosk

ArtFire is one of the most popular websites to buy/sell hand-made products. ArtFire Kiosk on Facebook is an app to allows for a flawless incorporation of your ArtFire Fusion Studio. Its features include, Real time updates from Fusion Studio, 256 bit secure checkout encryption, Auto importation of your banner, avator and items, Sales tracking through your ArtFire control panels, Separate tab for Facebook profile and pages and many more.

My LinkedIn Profile

My LinkedIn Profile lets you promote your LinkedIn account with a badge on your Facebook profile. It gives you a great opportunity to combine the power of social and professional networking to enhance your career or business.

Work With Us

The Work With Us application exhibits jobs on profile or fan pages. Anybody can browse interesting opportunities at companies where friends work, apply to the jobs and send Jobvites to their own friends and contacts.

I am Selling

I am Selling promotes your ebay items on your Facebook. You can also list a friend’s items if you’re not selling anything. This widget is a very good way of promoting your ebay items to new potential customers.

Real Estate – Realtor Listing Application

With the Real Estate Listing Application, you can easily add all your Real Estate listings to your Facebook profile. In addition to promote your real estate, the application also allows members to post reviews about different realtors and properties.

It would not be an overstatement to say that English is the language of the world. Although Mandarin tops the list of most commonly spoken languages in the world, it’s a known fact that English links people around the globe. Thus, it won’t hurt to get a deeper understanding of this ever-present language and work towards bettering your grammar and vocabulary. Below is a list of some excellent web tools that can help in building a strong vocabulary and learning a new language:

VocabSushi

VocabSushi is a young resource that will let you build your vocabulary by playing games that take into account real-world usage and which adjusts to your skill and capability as you precede. It is ideal for students studying for standardized tests like the SAT or GRE. Features include endless sentence completion questions, word list management, article reader, downloadable MP3 audio, printable quizzes and more.

WordSpy

WordSpy is a website that tracks new words and phrases as they enter the English Language.

Wordnik

Wordnik offers a blend of results aimed at users getting more than just a stale definition of a word. It has that, of course, but it also has examples of phrases containing the word, drawn from a range of sources, and put in context. An interesting feature is the Twitter integration as the dictionary does a real-time search for the word on the social networking website and brings up tweets using it. It also pulls images related to the search term from Flickr and has a helpful ‘related words’ section, which contains the usual synonyms and antonyms but also, interestingly, words related to the subject that would be used in the same context. Users will be able to add their own words on top of the 1.7 million already available and the site creators hope that this, along with the social media elements, will make the site appealing to word enthusiasts as well as regular users.

Webopedia

Webopedia is the no-nonsense, low-jargon online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and internet technology definitions.

Phrases.net

Phrases.net is a community-driven resource that accumulates common phrases, casual expressions and idioms. These can be browsed through and rated as well as heard and translated to many of the most representative languages in the world today.

WordAhead

WordAhead allows you to choose from hundreds of words to review in video format. Each video uses graphics, text, and audio to describe the word, give its definition, and present the word in various contextual situations to provide a deeper understanding of the word. You can also view the videos in fullscreen which is great for displaying on the SMARTBoard. The site also has a Word List section which lists words alphabetically and provides a short definition. Students can click on the word to watch the video. It also has a Study Room where students can choose a word to watch the video review, go through a series of flash cards, or even create their own word list.

Wordia

Wordia is a first of a kind online video dictionary where you can search word definitions submitted by users as videos.

Thsrs

Thsrs is a simple online synonym finder that takes any word and find its shorter synonyms. Works simple, just type the words you need to find synonyms for into the provided field and click “Look up”. Thsrs will then come up with all available shorter synonym terms.

OneWord

OneWord is a website which allows the user to play a common writer’s prompt exercise, giving the user sixty seconds to write about one word. Its primary function being to assist in releasing one’s “internal editor.”

Vocabulary Is Fun

This website allows you to build your vocabulary with amusing crosswords and match games. It is the perfect place for anyone looking to expand their vocabulary skills or learn new words.

If you have a single Twitter account, there are thousand and one tools that you can use to post your tweets and receive updates. But, if you own more than one Twitter account, you will find that handling them simultaneously is not as simple. Most Twitter clients (as well as the Twitter website) support only one instance of Twitter login. To post to multiple accounts, you will have to log out and log in again with the new username, which can be a taxing and time consuming chore.

No need to sweat though as there a number of web-tools that make managing multiple Twitter accounts really easy. No need to download a desktop client or open multiple browser windows, simply use one of these services and tweet from as many accounts as you want at the same time:

Matt

Multi Account Twitter Tweeter, commonly known as Matt, makes it really easy to post to multiple Twitter accounts without having to log into each one every time. You do not need to sign up for any account. As long as you have a Twitter account, you will be able to login and send tweets. The first twitter account that you sign in to is considered your primary Matt account. Once you are logged in, you will be able to add other accounts in the settings page. When sending tweets, you can select various accounts, or select all to update your tweets.

HootSuite

Formerly known as Brightkit, Hootsuite is a popular web based Twitter client that lets you tweet to multiple Twitter accounts at once. You will be required to sign up for a free account with Hootsuite before you can use their services. Once you have made your account, you will be able to setup a variety of twitter accounts in the dashboard. To send a tweet, you can either update it from their website, or save the owl icon as a bookmarklet in your bookmark bar. The bookmarklet comes with a Send Later function where you can set a future time to send your tweets.

Splitweet

Splitweet is a Twitter multi-accounts and brand monitoring manager. It doesn’t just let you access several accounts at once, but it also monitors your brands and shows you how many times your name was cited.

TwitHive

If you have ever used and fallen in love with TweetDeck and would like to have a similar online version to manage multiple accounts, then TwitHive is the best contender. TwitHive is still in beta and its interface is not as refined as the others. Nevertheless, one awesome feature that TwitHive has is its capability to setup channels and track what others are talking about in the twittersphere. It is similar to TweetDeck, apart from the fact that it supports many Twitter accounts at once so you can track more stuff in just one page.

Tweet3

Tweet3 is just like any other Twitter page, except for the fact that it is improved and comes with added functionality. Other than the typical replies, favorite, message stuff, it comes with an Analytics tool that analyzes your Followers vs. Following statistics. It also supports grouping, Facebook, pretty pictures, trending topics, and all kinds of other cool stuff.

Twitomate

Twitomate is a very basic application designed just to let you line up tweets to publish on a rolling basis. However, if you have got multiple accounts and you just want to keep them updated, Twitomate is worth a look.

TwitIQ

TwitIQ is a improved Twitter interface that offers insight into your Twitter stream and Twitter followers. With TwitIQ you get: Full Twitter View/Update features, Keyword & Topic Insight into Tweets, Filters for Tweet streams, User Profiles with Keyword & Topic Insight, Integrated Twitter and Blog/News Search, Support for Multiple Twitter accounts and Many other UI enhancements.

TweetFunnel

TweetFunnel is designed for companies, organizations, academic institutions or anyone who would like to have multiple individuals contribute to a Twitter stream. You can also monitor for tweets mentioning your username, create a stockpile of tweets for future use, schedule tweets and assign tweets to another user for follow up. In addition you can manage multiple Twitter accounts from one user-friendly interface.