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We want it for ourselves, we want it for our kids, and we want it now. But what if everything we knew about happiness was a lie? What if the relentless pursuit of pleasure was in fact making us miserable?
Don’t think that you have to know more to be a good teacher. In fact, it is very often by teaching that the professor learns about his subject.
— Anonymous
If you are a regular of Facebook and your News Feed are starting to get too noisy for your liking, I have great news for you. I’m about to share some tips on how to manage your feed and improve your Facebook experience.
I am a regular user of Facebook both for personal and work, and I have been using it long enough to know the various type of postings from my friends, and various type of Facebook friends. I admit that I used to add people as friends even though I just met them at a social function or those you have lost touch in years. After a while, you will see some patterns from your friends; those who like to share a lot, those who are self-absorb, those who love to say weird or just annoying stuff, and the list goes on. In my case, it got to a point where I didn’t enjoy using Facebook any more.
Like most people, initially, I couldn’t be bothered to tinker with some of the filtering options and other features that would help to manage these noise. Although these options and features have been around, I thought they were just too much work and I decided to flirt with other new social networks. Some of the new services that I tried were Google+ and Path. I thought these would give me a fresh start, which it did, but then I realize that most of my friends that I interact with most didn’t embrace the new services like I did. So, finally, I went back and began the process of spring cleaning my News Feed and now I’m enjoying Facebook more than ever.
Now, keep in mind, this is not one of those set and forget tips but a process that may take the course of several days or even weeks (depending on how much effort you are willing to put) to show optimal results. However, fear not, it’s not a chore as you imagined because you can do it as you go, while you are using Facebook as usual. One last note, this is better done through the desktop version rather than mobile app because some features are not available in the app, or simply too tedious to get to.
Managing Your Friends’ Posts
To manage your friends’ postings, you want to filter the amount of posts you would like to see from them.
To get to this menu, simply hover your mouse over the name of your friend or Facebook Page on your News Feed. A small window will appear which looks like a mini Timeline of that page. Once that window appear, move your mouse pointer and hover on the ‘Like’ button which will bring up a drop down menu (see below). Then, click on Settings.
When you click on Settings, it will give you options as follow:
If you are good friends with this person but would like to reduce the amount of posts you see from them, I would suggest to select Only Important. However, if you don’t really like the person’s postings but you also feel uncomfortable to unfriend them, I would suggest to disable Show in News Feed (by default there is a check sign next to it so you’d want to uncheck it).
To completely stop their postings from showing up on your News Feed, simply hover your mouse pointer over the Like button and uncheck Show in News Feed. Do this for the next several days and you will soon see the quality of your News Feed improving.
Managing Facebook Pages You Have Liked
Now that you have managed your friends’ postings, I would like to suggest another tip to further improve the quality of your News Feed. Before I explain it, I would like to share my Facebook usage behavior to give you a better idea why I organized it the way I did.
It used to be that social networks were a way for us to ‘socialize’ with our friends near and far. That has changed for me in the last couple of years. While I do still like to stay in touch with friends and family particularly who are overseas, the main motivation for me to use social networks is to consume news and articles that interests me. In order for me to stay in touch while consuming the articles I like, I have decided to organize them into separate feeds so it doesn’t become overwhelming.
I decided that my News Feed is designated only for my friends so only their updates will appear on this feed. For Facebook Pages that I have liked, I organized them into different Interest Lists so it’s more convenient for me to sift through the articles. Oh, did I mention that I have a slight OCD? Well, now you know.
Here’s how I organize my Interest Lists:
(NOTE: Online Media is actually a list of my favorite online news media.)
To create an Interest Lists, follow the same instruction as how you manage your friends’ posts frequency above. First thing I did, I would uncheck Show in News Feed and then click on Add to Interest Lists. Doing so will show a drop down menu, then go ahead to select +New. Follow the instructions and don’t forget to give your list a name.
Now, this will take some time to organize if you are doing it as you go every time you visit Facebook. But, if you’re an OCD like me, you can do this right away so you can find some inner peace.
To do this, go to your Timeline page by clicking on your name (right next to a small profile photo of yourself) on top of your Facebook page. Then, scroll down until you find the box titled Likes on the left column (see image below for reference).
Click on Likes heading and it will bring up a page of all of the Pages you have Liked like below:
Once there, simply repeat the process to create your list for all (or some) of the Pages into different lists.
Keep in mind, even though you have put the Facebook Pages you have Liked into a list they will still occasionally appear on your News Feed. However, they will be grouped by your list and only show very few updates because it acts as a notification letting you know there are new posts from that list.
One More Thing…
Would you like to stop getting notifications from games your friends play on Facebook? If the answer is yes then this is what you would want to do.
When you receive a notification from a game, click on the Notification Center on the top left of your Facebook page where you normally would when you get Friend Request. Then, when the Notification window appear, hover your mouse pointer to the right until you see the ‘X’ symbol (see picture below). Click that to turn off all notifications from that particular game or app.
So there you have it. They are the tips to improve your News Feed and make your Facebook experience fun again. If you have other tips please let me know by leaving a comment and I will update them to this piece. Don’t forget to share this to your friends or family members so that they can have fun again with Facebook.
Thanks for stopping by.
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This is why I think the Groupon/Livingsocial business model is not the best startup strategy for the long run. While some will prevail, many will fail.
It takes a great deal of patience from the investors to endure years of unprofitability (note: it took Amazon 6 years to turn a profit), and a brilliant cost effective marketing plan to run the business. And, at same time, you need to scale fast.
