Take Back Control of Your Facebook

I still can remember Facebook as it was years ago. The focus was on staying in contact with friends vs the focus of today, which is marketing. Over the years, Facebook has transformed considerably and in my opinion, not for the better. In saying this, I recently had my own epiphany moment and decided to take back control of my Facebook.

I am tired of feeling overwhelmed by the constant running of my newsfeed. I found myself forgetting to actually interact with people I really like vs staring at random unimportant updates. I am done with being consumed by it all and want the purpose back! Saying this, I decided to venture into the settings, etc and did everything I could to make my Facebook, MY Facebook once again. Thanks to my steps, you can take back control of your Facebook!

Take Back Control of Your Facebook

Check Your Public Profile View – If you are fine with everyone and anyone looking at your photos and posts, then you can skip this part. However, you most likely care, so you need to have a look at what the public sees. Go to your profile, click on … (found after your view activity log) and click on View As. Once you establish what is seen and what is not, you can go in and make the necessary changes.

Assess Your Photo and Post Settings – You will want to go into your photos and posts to change anything that is set as public to either friends or only me. It is also a great time to consider deleting unnecessary photos or posts that are no longer relevant. For instance, have you entered a contest that ended a few weeks ago and still have the “share this” post on your timeline? Well, get rid of it. You and your friends want to see relevance on your page vs spam.

Evaluate Your Friends – Every day that you open Facebook, you are letting everything and everyone into your life. Do you really want to waste time on people that aren’t an important factor in your life, etc? Go through your friends and decide who stays and who goes. Don’t feel guilty about this. You are in control of whom you let in your life and Facebook should be no different.

Assign Your Friends Appropriately – In the picture above, you can see my friends section. When you hover over each friend’s photo, you are able to assign them as friends, acquaintances, or create a different group. This is perfect if you want to keep a person on your profile, but want to limit what they are allowed to see.

You are also able to choose who you See First. This is fantastic so you can prioritize the friends in your life. It allows your newsfeed to become focused on those that matter the most to you.

Adjust Your Likes – This is one area that is going to surprise you the most. I had over 1000 pages that I liked and it explains why my newsfeed was constantly running. You want to see the pages that matter. I eliminated over half of my likes and it changed my newsfeed from constant to relevant again.

We all change where we are in life from even a few months past, so many of the pages you have liked aren’t ones you connect with at all. You can also adjust whether you follow the page or not as you may want to like a page, but don’t want to follow them.

Undo Your Ads – For me personally, this was the section that blew up my mind. I was shocked to see what Facebook was targeting at me. You visit your settings, then ads, then click on Visit Ad Preferences.

You will then see a section full of all the ad preferences Facebook has for you. You will want to open each section and click the X to undo the selection. I removed almost 90% of what Facebook had for me. It was ridiculous.

Overhaul Your Settings – You probably visit your settings rarely, if at all. You will find them by hovering over the area all the way in the top right hand side of Facebook. You will be able to reassess everything from your security to followers. This is your Facebook, so take back control.

By implementing all these steps, my Facebook is awesome now. I am able to see the people and pages that matter. My newsfeed no longer bothers me with the unimportant. Plus, I can get my life back because I won’t be spending countless hours a day trying to filter everything! I hope this helps you as well!!!!!!!!