Every time we blink, Facebook announces that they’ve changed their algorithm and adjusted what posts you’ll see in your newsfeed. For marketers, this is just one more hurdle to jump over — and honestly, we love the challenge. But for the average Facebook user, this means that the posts you’re used to seeing in your newsfeed might be changing… and the changes aren’t always what you want.
But have no fear! There are ways to customize your Facebook newsfeed so you see more of the things you like and less of the things you find annoying or irrelevant. There’s even a way to personalize the content that you post to others! And a less annoying Facebook is a Facebook we will all grow to love again.
1. See more of what you want.
Have a friend you’d like to hear more from? Or maybe there’s a business you really like, and you look forward to seeing more of their content. In order to make sure you’re seeing everything they post, you’ll want to categorize them in certain ways.
See more from a friend:
On your friend’s profile, hover over the dropdown menu for Friends. Make sure you’ve selected Get Notifications so you can see all of this friend’s updates. You also want to make sure that there’s a check mark next to Following.
See more from a company or brand:
Even if you already Like a company page, you may not see all of their posts. Make sure you have a check mark next to Following on their main Facebook page.
2. See less of what you don’t want.
If you don’t want to unfriend that old high school buddy, but you’re really tired of the soapbox he climbs up on each time he posts, you can easily Unsubscribe from him to keep his Debbie Downer posts out of your newsfeed.
Under the Friends dropdown, check Acquaintances to let Facebook know that you two are not close friends. You can also uncheck the Follow button to unsubscribe from his posts. And because you didn’t unfriend, you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings!
Same thing goes for business pages. You may have Liked your veterinarian’s Facebook page to receive 10% off Fido’s visit, but you don’t necessarily want to see their daily “cutest puppy award” posts. No worries! You can still Like the page and uncheck the Follow button, just like you did with your friend up above. And your vet will be none the wiser.
3. Personalize what you share with others.
We all have different circles of friends – some people we’re closer to and others we only see at high school or family reunions. By creating different lists for your Facebook friends, you can customize who sees what.
From your newsfeed (not your profile – click the Facebook icon in the upper left corner of the page), scan down the left sidebar under your profile image. You should see a section for Friends. Hover over that section and click the More button when it appears. This is your segmented Friends lists. Facebook automatically groups people based on location, but you can make lists for anything!
I have a list for Social Media, which contains all of my professional contacts and anyone else I know that’s interested in social media. Any time I want to post a status updated related to social media, I use that list. My mom doesn’t care about the best way to use Pinterest for your business, so she’s not on that list and therefore won’t see that update. Here’s how to get started with lists.
Create a list
This is the easy part. Figure out what type of list you want. It could be related to an interest or hobby, or it could be professional. Click + Create List in the upper right corner of your Friends list page. Add the people you want to include on your list and click Create. Once you have a list, you can add or delete people by clicking on the list in the sidebar, then selecting Manage from the upper right corner.
Customize your posts
Next time you have a status update or photo that you only want to post to a certain list of friends, select that list from the dropdown menu within the status update bar. You can select one list or choose Custom if you want to send to multiple people or lists.
BONUS: See what your friends see
If you want to double check to see what a specific person sees on your own Facebook page, you can do that too! On your Facebook page, inside the cover photo, select the gear icon and choose View As. At the top of the page, you can View as Specific Person or View as Public to see how your profile looks to someone who’s not your friend.
Remember when you first joined Facebook and you slowly built your friends list with people you’re really interested in keeping in touch with? Then slowly, without really noticing, our Facebook feeds turned into a long list of updates from people we’re not in contact with anymore and companies we don’t care about. You CAN make Facebook work for you. Take back control of your newsfeed and make your own personal Facebook experience more enjoyable — for you and the people you’re friends with.
Over and out,
Erika
