So, if you want to appear in someone’s suggested friend’s list on Facebook or, as Facebook puts it, their “People You May Know”, then read on to find out all the details.
Can You Appear In Someone’s Suggested Friends on Facebook?
Yes, you can appear as someone’s suggested friend on Facebook as long as you have provided any meaningful information about yourself. Facebook uses several data about you such as your friends, profile information, uploaded phone contacts, and Facebook activity to suggest friends to its users. As soon as Facebook algorithms determine that there may be something in common between you and the person based on any of the parameters listed above, then you will get suggested to them as a friend. However, if you do not have any friends on Facebook, you did not provide any meaningful profile information about yourself, such as your school, work, or current city, and you do not share any common phone contact with a person, then you are very unlikely to get suggested to the person as a friend. Facebook also advises that to make it easier for your friends to find you on Facebook, you should make sure to add your basic info and add another name to your account if you are known by a name other than the name that you have used on Facebook.
How to Appear in Someone’s Suggested Friends on Facebook
Thankfully, there are several ways to make sure that you appear as someone’s suggested friend on Facebook. We are going to take a detailed look at them one after the other.
1. Having friends in common
This is one of the surest ways to ensure that you appear on someone’s suggested friends on Facebook. If you have friends in common, that is, Facebook friends in common, then it is almost certain that you will appear on the person’s suggested friends or their “People You May Know” on Facebook. The good thing is that you do not need to have more than one friend in common with them. As long as you have at least one friend in common with the person, you will surely appear on the list of suggested friends. However, the more friends you have in common, the more likely you are to appear at the top of their suggested friends. This is because Facebook gives priority to people who are more likely to know each other by having multiple friends in common. Therefore, if you know any friends that the person has on Facebook, you can add them as a friend. But, if you already have friends in common with the person, then rest assured that you will appear as their suggested friend on Facebook. The person may only need to do a bit of scrolling to find you in their list of suggested friends.
2. Your profile information
If you want to appear in someone’s suggested friends on Facebook, then it is important that you add as much information on your profile and Facebook networks as possible. That is, you should add information such as your current town or city, school, work, and so on. This is because Facebook uses these pieces of information to check if you have things in common with the person. So, if you did not already have enough information on your profile, follow the steps below to add relevant information and increase the chances of appearing on people’s list of suggested friends:
- Go to facebook.com on a desktop computer
- Click on your name at the top left corner of the screen to open your profile
- When your profile opens, click on edit profile
- Scroll down to the Customise Your Intro section and click on Add next to it
- Here you will see work, education, current town or city, hometown, websites and social links, among others
- Fill in each of these pieces of information. Make sure to add both your high school and University to increase your chances of being suggested to the person. If you do not have a high school in common, you may have a university in common.
- After entering these, click on Save On Facebook app:
- Launch the Facebook app on your phone and click on your profile picture at the top left of the screen next to What’s On Your Mind.
- Or, click on the three horizontal lines at the top right or bottom right of the screen and tap on See Your Profile
- Here, you will see work, education, current town or city, hometown, and school
- Tap on each to fill in the necessary information Please note that it may take about 24 hours for Facebook to add the information you have just provided to their algorithm database in order to increase your chances of being suggested to people as a friend. Tip: if you know relevant information about the person, such as their current town or city, workplace, school, or hometown, you can add that to your profile instead of your actual information. This is because filling in these pieces of information is not enough on its own if none of them have anything in common with the person on whose list of suggested friends you want to appear. So, to target a specific person, enter information that they have in common on their own profile.
3. Get active on Facebook
Another parameter that Facebook uses to suggest you to someone as a friend is if your Facebook activities match with the people. For example, if you join a group that the person is also a member of, then you are likely to be suggested to them as a friend. Also, if you are tagged in the same post or photo as the person, then Facebook will suggest you to them as a friend and vice versa. When you are in the same group as the person, it means that you have something in common with them. Facebook uses this to determine that they may want to connect with the outside of the group, and so you will get suggested to them as a friend because of your common group membership. So, if you know a Facebook group that the person is a member of, you can join the group right away and increase your chances of being suggested to them as a friend on Facebook. Similarly, if you and the person are tagged in the same post, it means that you both know the person who tagged you in the post…which works just like having a mutual friend on Facebook. So, this gets you suggested to them as a friend as well.
4. Contacts upload
If the person is on your phone contact list and you upload your contacts to Facebook, you will be suggested to each other as friends on Facebook. Similarly, if the person has you as a contact on their phone and they upload their contacts on Facebook, you will also be suggested to them as a friend on Facebook. Furthermore, if someone that you both know has both of you as contacts on their phone, and they upload their contacts on Facebook, you also be suggested to each other as friends on Facebook. Initially, Facebook would suggest you to someone as a friend only if they had you as a contact on their phone and uploaded their contacts on Facebook. But as Facebook increased its efforts to stay relevant and keep people connected, it increased the reach of the algorithms to include you having them as a contact on your phone and a third party having you both as a contact on their phone. Any of these will have you suggested to the person as a friend on Facebook. To upload your mobile phone contacts to Facebook using an Android phone:
- Launch the Facebook app and tap on the three horizontal lines at the top right of the screen
- Tap on Settings and Privacy, then tap on Settings
- Scroll down to Permissions and tap on Upload contacts
- Toggle to turn on Continuous Contacts Upload
- Then, tap on Get started to follow the prompt, and complete uploading your phone contacts
- To upload your mobile phone contacts to Facebook using an iPhone:
- Launch the Facebook app and click on the three horizontal lines at the bottom right of the screen
- Tap settings and privacy, then tap settings
- Scroll down to permissions and tap upload contacts
- Toggle to turn on upload contacts, then tap on continue
5. Remove restrictions
All of the methods provided above work best if you have not put in place restrictions on them. Even though Facebook makes extensive use of the information you provide to suggest friends you may know and suggest you as a friend to someone, you still have control over just how much information Facebook can use for this purpose. For example, in the setting of how people can find and contact you, the more restrictive your settings are, the less likely you are to get suggested to people as a friend on Facebook. Head over to your privacy settings on Facebook and adjust the following settings:
- On the Facebook app, click on the three horizontal lines at the top right or bottom right of the screen
- Tap on settings and privacy, then tap on settings
- Scroll down to Audience and Visibility and tap on How people can find and contact you
- You may change Who Can Send You Friend Requests to Everyone. You may also change Who Can Look You Up Using The Phone Number You Provided to Friends of Friends
6. Location services
Facebook does not officially acknowledge this, but they do use location services to suggest People You May Know. Oh wait, they actually did acknowledge it once and later retracted it. The truth is that Facebook will use location services to detect your location and suggest to people that you have been in the exact same location. So, if you are in the same location as the person that you want to get suggested as a friend, then make sure that you allow Facebook to have access to your location services and then leave their algorithms to do the rest. Another thing you should do is to take advantage of the Check-Ins feature on Facebook to display places that you have been to at any given time. If the person has been in the same area, you are likely to get suggested to them as your friend on Facebook.
7. Tell someone to suggest you as a friend to them
Facebook initially had the Suggest a Friend feature, but this has since been removed. You can, however, still be suggested as a friend to someone by having a link to your profile sent to the person directly. So you can ask someone that has access to the person on Facebook to send a link of your profile to them as a friend suggested using the steps below: They should simply launch the Facebook app on their phone and then go to your profile On your profile page, they should click on the three dots next to Message At the bottom of the page that opens, they should tap on copy link to copy your Facebook profile They can then send the link to the person who you want to appear as a friend suggestion to using Facebook messenger or any other platform These are the main, well-researched, and proven ways to appear as a friend suggestion to someone on Facebook.
Final Thoughts
There have been suggestions and theories by users that Facebook uses other methods, such as integrating with third-party sites like dating sites to suggest friends on Facebook, but there is no real proof of this. What we know for sure about this is that those dating sites may connect you with people that you are already Facebook friends with if you link your Facebook account to the platform. Others also suggest that Facebook will suggest a friend to you when you view their profile. Again this is yet unproven. The information provided in this article is based on practical, provable facts and not hearsay. We will continue to update the content as we learn more methods for appearing on someone’s Facebook suggested friends.
