Your News Feed pulls posts that yourFacebook friends make into one place so you can read them all at once. But sometimes you want to read all about just one person. Fortunately, all their posts have been collected on their Timelines.
The Timeline is kind of like a News Feed all about one person. The links, videos, photos, and statuses she's posted all appear here, organized from newest to oldest by year and month, as well as posts her friends have left for her.
People post on their own Timelines with different intentions and frequencies (and subsequently, wind up appearing in your News Feed in varying amounts). Here are some of the types of information different people may tack up on the Timeline:
Major life milestones: Timelines come with specially allocated spaces for the big stuff: a recent move, a college graduation, a new job, or a wedding engagement. People can add past milestones at any time.
Detailed account: On the other end of the extreme, you get people who tell the stories of their lives through the sum of all the little things. These are the friends who post to their Timelines about their daily activities, thoughts, feelings, and plans. You know when they're relaxing at home, and when they're out to lunch; you know when they get stuck in traffic.
Something to share: Some people reserve their Timelines as a place to disseminate generally useful or enjoyable information to their friends. These people may post a link to an article they read or upload interesting mobile photos. They post news articles or write detailed accounts of things that just happened to them that others would find useful to know.
Meet up: Some people use their Timelines as a way to meet up with friends. They post when they're hanging out at a park or planning to visit a new city. If a friend is nearby and happens to read the post, the two of them can have a serendipitous adventure together.
Go public: You may see promotional posts on the Timelines or Pages of celebrities or brands. Bands may remind their fans about an upcoming tour or album release. A company may let people know about an upcoming contest in which fans may want to participate.
Timelines wind up being one of the places you are most likely to reach out to a friend. Usually leaving a Timeline post or a message that is visible on a Timeline is a way of tapping a friend on the shoulder to remind him you're there. Sometimes people have entire conversations on each other's Timeline.
To post on your friend's Timeline, follow these steps:
Go to her Timeline.
Unless she has changed her Privacy settings, she has a Share box at the top of her Timeline, just as you have in yours.
Click the type of post you want to leave.
You can post just text by clicking into the text box that says Write Something. You can click Photo to post a photo or video.
Type your comment to your friend.
(Optional) Add any tags or location information to your post using the appropriate icon at the bottom of the Share box.
When you're done, click Post.
Although there aren't any rules about when you can or can't post on someone's Timeline, one convention that has evolved over time is the Happy Birthday Timeline post. Because people get reminded of birthdays on Facebook, it's pretty easy to pop on over to your friend's Timeline and write a quick "Happy Birthday!" in honor of his day.
Unlike the posts you write for your own Timeline, you don't have specific privacy controls on the posts you leave on friends' Timelines. They may be seen by mutual friends (in their News Feeds) or by someone visiting your friend's Timeline. If you're worried about who's going to see what you're writing, you may be better off sending a private message.
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