In September of 2009 Facebook introduced a new innovation: The ability to “tag” friends in posts. Tagging friends in a Facebook post sends the friends you mentioned an alert that they’ve been tagged. Also, Facebook allows you to tag not just friends, but bands, groups, events – basically any person, place or thing that can possess a page in the Facebook universe. A tagged name becomes clickable as well, so if your friends want to visit a page you’ve liked, they can just click on the tagged name.

To tag someone in a Facebook post, use the @ symbol before their name. For example, if you wanted to tag your friend, Michael Watson, in a post about basket weaving you would write it like this: “Just took the most life changing basket weaving lesson with @Michael Watson. It was enlightening!”

Facebook has continued to improve its posting feature to the point that when you insert the @ symbol and begin typing, Facebook will then create a drop-down list of suggested names based on your input. For instance, if you insert the @ symbol and begin typing the letters “Je”, the drop-down will suggest friends, bands, and events linked to you that begin with the letters “Je”. For example, in this case the drop down may have three names like Jessica Victory (friend), Jewel (singer), and Jeeps (interest). When the name of the person, place, or event you wish to tag appears in the drop-down, click on the name and Facebook will automatically fill in the rest. The person or page is then tagged, and they will get an instant notification that you have tagged them.

Go ahead and start tagging. It’s fun and easy!