So you’ve racked up another year—congratulations. Birthdays are cause for celebration and if you haven’t consumed the greater part of a gallon of champagne, you’re not doing it right.

If there’s one day you shouldn’t be wasting time on Facebook, your birthday is one (days of elective surgery and emergency circumcisions are others). While you might have a technological leave of absence, your Facebook profile will experience more visits than a half-priced brothel during Fleet Week.

If you have an extensive friends list, a glut of wall posts from well-wishers can be overwhelming when you return to the social network from your celebratory haze, but a sense of inundation shouldn’t get in the way of basic manners.

Alas, many take the easy way out—liking a birthday wall post—and failing to thank their well-wishing friend personally. It might seem trivial, however, there’s nothing as irritating as receiving a perfunctory ‘like’ notification after you’ve taken the time to wish someone a happy birthday, it’s taken them a mere moment and half a thought to hit the ‘Like’ button.

Of course, an immediate response isn’t required and if you’re sitting on Facebook on your birthday, then quite frankly you’re a loser; however, after the fact you should review all of the messsages and reply individually. Avoid copying and pasting a prescribed response and vary your message—you’ll find calling your friends ‘love’, ‘pet’ and ‘darl’ will save on the keystrokes. By doing so, this will make others feel that their sentiment is appreciated and should give you a sense of satisfaction knowing you’ve done the right thing.

If you have a lot of friends then it can be a laborious task, but you can break it into discrete sessions with indiscreet lashings of cake and birthday fizz. Who said private community management has to be boring?

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