Life

How To Tag People In Facebook Messenger

by Kaitlyn Wylde
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Either Facebook is one of the most intuitive companies in the world, or they were totally eavesdropping on my group chat the other day. In an on-going group chat that includes nearly a dozen verbose women, it's nearly impossible to keep up — which is exactly why one of my friends lamented that she wished that you could tag people in Facebook messenger. That way, you'd never miss a message directed at you. And when the conversation takes on a life of its own (as it always does) you can just wait it out and later go through your mentions to get the Cliff-noted version of whatever directly applies to you.

Pretty good idea, right? I guess Facebook thought of it, too, because their newsroom just announced a new feature called "Mentions" that they've added onto their Messenger app. This upgrade will not make group chats less chaotic, but they'll also ensure that no message directed at you goes unseen. Now there's a special notification just for messages that are specially meant for you to see. And if you're in a group chat, you know that all too often you realize you missed something and it's nearly impossible to scroll far back enough to get caught up. With mentions, we won't have to worry about missing a thing. Here's how to tag your friends and get the conversation started:

Head To The App Store

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If you don't already have the Messenger app, download that! It will make your social life so much easier! If you do have it, head to the app store anyway to make sure you have the latest version of the app installed. It's good to get in the habit of checking for updates, if you don't want to miss anything new!

Start A Conversation

Facebook

Now that you've got the updated app open, pick some friends and start a conversation. To mention someone specifically, type the “@” symbol or start typing the first few letters of the name or nickname of the person you want to notify and select them from the list.

Have Faith And Press Send

Facebook

The inner-working magic of Facebook will make the tag happen. When the message is sent, it will appear with highlighted text for the others in the group to see.

Get Notified

Facebook

When someone is mentioned with a tag, instead of simply seeing that someone responded in the conversation, that person will get a new kind of notification that lets them know they were tagged specifically. That way, it's super easy to just jump back into the conversation and reply to that exact statement. The cool thing is that everyone in the chat will see the call out, but only the person that's been mentioned gets the special call out. And of course, as with anything on Facebook, you can opt out of notifications.