Facebook is not simply a social network comprised of individuals and groups, but to this day, it is actually a virtual space built by a community of communities.

What this means is that, like any rural or urban places where people meet every day, Facebook works the same way almost perfectly as well.

The above characteristics of Facebook is among the most forgotten essential among Facebook users nowadays. Too many Facebook users have been misled to some thoughts like Facebook is only a photo album or gallery, an online backup solution, a digital collaboration table or space, or even worse—a stress ball or freedom wall.

They often forget that what they do—and don’t do—on Facebook will have at least a partial effect to other users of the platform.

It’s thus of utmost importance to follow some guidelines to avoid making Facebook a wrong place to incoming users. Want to enjoy more of what Facebook can offer? Then be a good user by looking into these 10 essential Facebook etiquette tips.

1. What you wear

Okay, admit it or not, but we all long for an online presence as a major factor for us registering on the social platform. Like any workplace, institution, or even in your own streets, what you wear and how you look should matter as always for that pleasing first impression (i.e., by ‘pleasing,’ I do not mean you need to please others. It’s just that you don’t have to look offensive or defensive).

Check your profile photo, your cover photo, your choice of words, your photo albums, and the items you share—something may reveal something wrong about you or others.

2. Who you friend up

Being a social network, you are always expected to be a social member who at least would entertain one friend; you are not to be a loner. However, on the contrary, don’t be too open to the point that you welcome everyone including the strangers.

Be careful also when you hook up with interesting pages or links offered on Facebook because of the real-life danger that may be entailed with them.

Only listen to what is appropriate, befriend with real-life friends, and negotiate with real-life friendly neighbors (and by ‘friendly,’ I mean those who are not suspicious to compromise your safety).

3. Control your contagions

Based on statistics and findings, a large percentage of what you see and share on Facebook are actually looking up for backdoors to hacking personal information. Taking as an example are the quick quizzes that you might take, like ‘Check how your partner cheats on you’ kind of thing.

Taking the quiz may be real, enjoyable, and interesting, tempting you to ask your friends to try it out as well and post the results. Aside from being a sore in the feeds and being dangerous, please don’t just flood your profile with these suspicious and vain contents.

4. Watch how you talk in public

There are basically three ways to communicate with your friends on Facebook: connect by message, threading in walls, and via interactive contents such as games. On this particular item, I am pertaining to the wall which is a public bench that everyone can look at and listen to. Walls can be great for posting updates, sharing great photos and other contents, and getting attention from friends.

For messages which may be private or lengthy, you may want to skip posting them on the wall as comments or replies and rather stick with chat heads or message threads. At least, in this way also, you won’t disturb other users (tagged in the same photo, for example) who are not part of your conversation.

5. Give invites to the right attendees

You play games, you enjoy them, and you want to call for players, the last of which may be the most critical for you because you want extra resource to your game like extra lives or extra coins, etc. There have been reports that a lot of users in Facebook are annoyed by these unimportant invitations or alerts, and blocking these apps one by one can be really tedious.

If you want to invite players, then invite them properly by choosing the right people, making sure that at least the invitation would be ‘okay’ for them.

6. Get the Selfie off the shelf

Especially nowadays, the new genre of auto-photography coined as Selfie is highly prominent; this pertains to you posting so much of your own random photos to your wall for everyone to see.

Face the fact: it can really get annoying, and besides, virtually no one would want to observe every angle of your face, your neck, your shoulders, etc.

You may want to keep all those narcissistic portraits of yours to a private album, or if you want to share them, at least don’t crowd the feeds of others.

7. Let Likes be natural

Liking and disliking, alongside with commenting and sharing, are both crucial parts of using Facebook, and it’s really fun! However, if you want to get more likes to your post—let’s say, your artwork—then you should really post something that is likable enough.

Don’t use hacking tools, don’t try to message all of your friends telling them to like this or that, and don’t post on your wall about that potential interest. Keep the interest discreet as you’d do in real life, and if it’s truly likable enough, crowds will always find their way to it.

8. Let the great and noble ones rule

You must have observed it, but as for me, I would really hate seeing posts about a young toddler in need of prayers and financial assistance. No, it isn’t bad to ask for help, but what made these posts bad is the way the request is being presented.

You don’t have to post an open wound to get people’s attention. You don’t have to lock viewers with choices like “Share if you care; scroll down if you don’t.”

If you want a particular assistance and if you want to see the world as the best place to be, then put only the positive and the most convincing posts.

9. Beneficial advertising

Especially on the business side where you want to advertise your products or services, you don’t have to always update your profile with the latest products that you offer.

As like the marketing principle, if you really want to make your product ‘sell,’ then be sure that it should be beneficial to be interesting. Otherwise, what you are just simply doing is occupying space, if not spamming.

10. Mind your own business

Last but can be really critical, if you happen to encounter an ongoing or logged-in Facebook account that logging out might be forgotten, the best thing to do is to log it out rather than playing it and destroying the account or profile.

This has been a very sensitive legal case pertaining to online harassment. Unless you are given the permission to manage or modify an account which you do not own, better mind your own business.