Messy Facebook? Clean it up
When I used to look at my Facebook, I immediately thought of that junk drawer in the kitchen that barely opens and closes. So much stuff, so hard to organise.
It’s my fault that it took so long, but I finally cleaned it up. now, I use it like a pro and everything fits neatly in its own space.
Whether you have 10 Facebook friends or 10,000, you don’t have to live with the clutter any longer. here are just a few ways to keep everything manageable.
create a friends list
Facebook has a lot of options to narrow down content into easy-to-digest bites, but it doesn’t always do a great job making people aware of them. You’ve long had the ability to create a friends list, and now I’m going to tell you why you should.
I create friends lists based on location. So my friends from Pittsburgh and my friends from new Jersey each have a list. When I want to see what they are talking about, I click on the list. It’s a giant filter and it works flawlessly.
To create a friends list, click “friends” in the left rail at facebook. com and click “create list” on the next screen. Once you have your friends organised into lists, the way you use Facebook will change.
Don’t miss anything from that special someone
With Get notifications, you can ensure that you never miss a post from a certain friend. Once activated, you’ll get a notification whenever this person posts something. And it should always show up in your news Feed.
To activate a notification for a specific person, go to the person’s profile page and hover over where you see “Friends.” Under there, select “Get notifications.”
Unfollow before you unfriend
You know you’ve wanted to, but you chickened out because you didn’t want the person to find out. I’m talking about unfriending, and there’s no other way to read it than “I can’t stand all your posts about politics and diapers and I never want to see your stuff pop up in my Facebook feed again.”
Resisting the urge to unfollow is just like resisting the urge to tweet something that you’ll regret. In that case, I tell people to launch Notepad or Word to type their thoughts so they don’t get out on Twitter. In this case, I suggest something similar: Using unfollow instead of unfriend.
And if you didn’t know there was an unfollow, you aren’t alone. But there’s a big difference between the two: Unfriend is permanent and eventually the person you unfriended will find out, even if they just get the add friend prompt on your page. Unfollowing is completely hidden. You won’t see a thing from the person in their feed — nothing at all — but they will be none the wiser.
To unfollow, just find some content from that person in your newsfeed and hover over it until you see a downfacing arrow in the upper right corner. Click on the arrow and select unfollow. Boom! You lose the annoying stuff and no one’s feelings are hurt. Although note that you won’t get any birthday wishes from this person. Just in case that matters.
Be selective
Remember the friends list from earlier? You can create a list under here called “restricted” or “no” and use it to keep prying eyes out. So a post can be shared with “close friends” and hidden from “restricted.”
To pick and choose between lists, look for the “custom” menu under the friends icon in the posting window. In the menus that pop up, you’ll see the option to share with some but hide from others.
There are other ways to be organised on Facebook, and I would love to hear what works for you. But these should be a good starting point. — McClatchyTribune Information Services