How to Get Out of Application Hell in Facebook

So, you’re finally starting to see that Facebook (FB) is useful for business, after picking up a few consulting jobs or getting traffic to a site where you make sales to people who found you on Facebook.

But the Applications requests are driving you quite mad. You wouldn’t leave Facebook, that would be like throwing money out the window. What can you do?

First of all, you can have a more aggressive app denial policy.

Most people who invite just do mass invitations, and they won’t even notice if you hit ignore.

Personally, I ignore the majority of app requests. It’s not like people get a notice that says “Tinu hates you because she hit Ignore when you did an app request – what a mean jerk!” LMAO…

I’m pretty sure I haven’t added anyone as a FB friend who cares that deeply if I delete their app.

Most people either

1. Don’t care whether you have the app or not,
2. Aren’t power users of FB, and think that this behavior is expected, or,
3. Sincerely believe that the application will help or amuse you in some way.

New folks especially don’t realize what a nuisance it is for someone with over 100 friends to get an app request every single time they find a new program. They just think, we’re friends, they’ll want this too.

Of course this doesn’t work for every situation.

There are those applications that almost everyone else seems to like – except you.

For example, I’m not a big fan of Top Friends, not because it’s a bad app, just because I’d rather not rank my pals. But I get ranked all the time, which, I’ll admit, is kind of nice.

Getting an invite for it every five minutes because someone ranked me? Is not….

I don’t even think most of my friends realize that some applications can attempt to notify your friends on your behalf…. hint, hint…

So, what to do if you are getting lots of requests for a specific app?

Our second tip is that you can do a total, or partial block of the application.

Under Inbox, Notifications, you can

• uncheck an application in the right-hand column, so that you won’t be showen the notifications,
• click on x to the right, which will give you the option to either remove a single notification, or report them as spam, blocking future notifications.

The third thing you can do is keep an application, but keep it from showing up on your profile, and toggle the notifications according to your mood.

If you click on the word Applications at the top left when you’re logged into Facebook, you’re going to find a place where you can edit the settings.

For Fun Wall and Super Wall, I leave it off my profile but turn the notifications on once a week to see if anyone is trying to reach me.

As you know if you’re a power-user, the Wall area on your profile is a pretty significant way of communication. A lot of people use it as an ice-breaker area or as a personal water cooler, to make the initial safe contact, before proceeding to a private message, or discussion board.
Because of this, I’m conscious of what’s happening on the Wall in any area I’m a constant participant, especially my profile.

Some people turn the official version of the Wall off, and change over to the third-party versions, so sometimes someone may be trying to reach you through common third-party applications.

This works for other popular applications that you may use a few times a week but don’t want to include on your profile for whatever reason.

(My reason is that I’m about to do a bunch of FB app articles and don’t want to give any advance hints about who I’m going to write about until my articles are within a week of publication.)

Instead of adjusting the settings after you’ve added it, you also can do it when you first install it if you like.

It’s on that first page that shows up after you click “Add Application”- only the very first option is mandatory, but be sure to check that unchecking something won’t interfere with the operation of the application.

If you aren’t developing an internet following, or if you don’t already have one, you might want to remove the typical nuisance apps altogether – if you have a small friends list, say 20 people who aren’t daily users, it might just be easier to delete them when they come up.

I’ve picked up a client or two by being attentive to the Super Wall and FunWall.

Some people like them – they aren’t bad apps, they just aren’t for me. Instead of deleting, willy nilly, find a way to work with useful apps that may be just a bit too aggressive.

Just as strengthening existing business connections, or getting new visitors from Facebook is reason enough to at least have a profile, application harassment isn’t enough of a reason not to have one.

You’re in control of how you interact with the site, and as long as you remember that, Facebook will be useful to you. You can add as much or as little information as you like, you can have an active profile full of apps, or you can be an active user with sparse apps. Or you can be a power user with your apps hidden for your use only.

In the meantime, when you introduce your pals to FB, remind them that the magic is in the people connection. Of course, many of those apps facilitiate the people connection. Others are more private applications. Most applications are either fun or useful.

I mean, what’s MS Windows without Word or Outlook? What’s an internet connection without a browser or instant messaging?

The applications are an integral part of FB, a potentially cool side effect, and there are some fun ones out there. It’s up to you how you want to use them.