Are you wondering how to tag someone on Facebook?
Tagging is an important part of any social media service, as it allows you to notify others that you've mentioned them. This helps increase the reach on the post, can make it easier to find in the future, and provides a link that people can click to see that friend's page.
Let's take a look at some of the ways you can tag others on Facebook. Keep in mind that your friends' privacy settings may affect the effectiveness of some of these methods.
1. Tagging in Status Updates and Comments
When you post a status update, you can tag your friends by typing an @ symbol followed by their name. As you type, a small window appears and updates automatically to show the best match for the text you've entered.
Click someone's name (or use the arrow keys and Enter) and it will appear highlighted in blue on your post. This means you've successfully tagged them.
In addition to your own friends, you can also tag other people and pages on Facebook. This includes friends of friends, business pages, and similar. The same method works for tagging others in comments across Facebook, too.
Just be aware that if your post privacy is set to Friends, tagging someone makes your post visible to their friends as well. You'll see the post privacy button change to Friends (+) to reflect this---see our guide to Facebook symbols if this is new to you.
2. Mention Who You Were With
Facebook allows you to add several elements to your posts, including feelings, location check-ins, and similar. One of these lets you mention that you were with certain friends.
To use it, click the Tag Friends option, which looks like a blue silhouette of a person with a tag next to it. This brings up a search box where you can enter a friend's name. Use the box to select one or more of your friends here. Be aware that unlike the above, you can only tag your own friends using this method, since you're claiming that you were with them.
Click Done when you're satisfied, and you'll see a new [Your name] is with [friend's name] line at the top of your status. Enter your post as usual and people will see this line to explain who you were with. Like the above, this allows friends of your friends to see the post.
While tagging people makes sense when mentioning them in what your status says, this method is more useful for letting people know your friends were actually with you for something.
3. Photo Tagging
Tagging friends in photos adds their name to a With line in the photo's description. It also lets others easily identify them by mousing over their face in the picture.
In addition, photos that you're tagged in appear in the Photos of You tab on the Photos section of your Timeline. Like both of the above, tagging someone allows their friends to see the photo too.
To tag an existing photo, open it---the image can be yours or someone else's. Click the Tag icon in the top-right, then click on a face in the image. Below the box, enter the name of a friend; friends of friends and pages also work.
Depending on the privacy settings of the person you tagged and the owner of the photo, they may have to approve the tag manually. And you might not see the tag option at all on other people's photos, if they have disabled the option to let other people tag their images.
If you want to add tags to your own photo when you upload it, click the Edit button at the top-left of the image when you have the post open. Click Tag photo from the left side, then follow the same steps to click on faces and enter names.
Facebook Tagging Made Easy
The above three methods are the main ways to use the tagging feature on Facebook. Use the @name method anywhere you want to highlight a friend or bring their attention to a post. Don't forget that you can always share a link to public Facebook posts if you just want them to see something, too.
For more like this, have a look at our guide to Facebook etiquette to ensure your interactions are courteous across the site.
Image Credit: Mactrunk/Depositphotos
