Facebook.com is one of the best social media websites of our time, and for good reason. It was a pioneer of optimizing the online profile, and making connections with others, and it changed social media forever. One of it’s best features was the News Feed, where you see the updates from all of your Facebook friends. As Facebook grew, the News Feed became more advanced, and began to show you great online articles and posts you might be interested in.
But what do you do when you keep seeing stories and advertisements that you’re just not into? When your News Feed features stories you want to get rid of, or you’re not seeing things you used to see that you liked, there is something you can do about it. In this article, we’ll teach you about all the ways to customize your Facebook News Feed, so you can control what you see, and make your Facebook browsing experience that much better.
1. Change your News Feed preferences.
The most convenient and quick way to change many aspects of your News Feed is to locate your News Feed Preferences menu. From any page, click the arrow at the far right of your permanent top menu. On the drop-down menu that appears, click News Feed Preferences.
From there, scroll through the various available menus, and change your settings as applicable. The menus you can customize here include:
- Prioritize who to see first
- Unfollow people to hide their posts
- Reconnect with people you unfollowed
- Discover Pages that match your interests
- Apps hidden from News Feed
Click on the name of any menu, and follow the menu specific instructions, which always involve clicking on boxes featuring your friends, or pages you have followed or may want to follow.
As you may know, there are many other Facebook settings you can change. If you need to change your account settings rather than just the News Feed preferences, we can show you how in our free tutorial on how to change your Facebook Account Settings here.
2. Think before you ‘Like’ or Share.
Though it may not seem like a big deal to give out a Like, Facebook.com keeps track of what you like and share, and will then show you things related to those types of posts. This is especially true in terms of advertising, so if you Like a deal offered to you by an online travel website (Priceline.com, for example), or try to win a contest for example, you will see posts from this same company in the future.
To avoid these kinds of posts appearing on your News Feed, think more carefully before liking something.
3. Unfollow profiles or pages you are following.
You might not even remember the things you chose to “Follow” when you signed up for Facebook, but if you haven’t updated these preferences, you will still see posts related to those topics periodically. The simplest way to Unfollow a profile or page is to search for it, and view the page. Then, find the button that says Following, and hover over it. Finally, click Unfollow on the pop-up menu that appears.
You can also access the News Feed Preferences menu, and click Unfollow people to hide their posts.
4. Utilize Facebook “Reactions.”
Facebook “Reactions” are Facebook’s newer feature for liking posts that allow you to better indicate how you feel about the post. Rather than just the standard thumbs up, you can choose from a thumbs up (Like), heart (Love), smiling face (Haha), surprised face (Wow), crying face (Sad), mad face (Angry).
5. Change what you “See First” on the News Feed.
If you simply want to be updated about certain things before others, you can customize your News Feed to show you something at the very top. In your News Feed preferences (see step 1 above), click Prioritize Who to See First.
From there, click on any of your friends to prioritize them, making their posts appear right at the top of your News Feed, next time you’re browsing.
6. Customize as you browse.
Even after doing all of this, it’s possible that some unwanted posts will still sneak on to your News Feed. The more diligent you are with taking the steps above, the less likely this is to happen. But, if it does, simply indicate that you don’t want to see these kinds of posts anymore. Click the arrow at the top-right of any post, and click Hide. From there, Facebook will ask you why you don’t want to see it. Simply indicate that something isn’t relevant, and you will no longer see posts like that.
You can also use this feature to notify Facebook that something is offensive or inappropriate, so be sure to manage your posts in this way as you browse rather than ignoring them. If you do, your Facebook News Feed will be cleaned up in no time!
And that’s how you control what you see on Facebook. If you want to learn more about Facebook and how to use it, you can do that in our free Facebook course here, where we’ll show you how Facebook privacy works, and how to change your Facebook privacy settings.
