How to Declutter Your Facebook Feed

Have you ever gotten fed up with Facebook? You joined Facebook as a way to connect with friends, but now it has become a never-ending advertisement or source of negativity. Let’s face it—Facebook can be a major time suck and cause of overwhelm for so many of us! And as bloggers, we only have so much time to spend on social media. How do you make sure that your content is relevant and seen?

Hi, I’m Jessica Bowman, and I am the social media manager and Director of Growth for Ruth Soukup Omnimedia, which includes Elite Blog Academy, Living Well Spending Less, and Do It Scared. But once upon a time, I was a blogger and EBA student, just like you! And one of the questions I get asked most often is how to dedicate time to promoting your blog on social media when you have no time, and Facebook especially is so overwhelming! I totally feel your pain…it can seem impossible to do ALL. THE. THINGS! Decluttering your personal Facebook will help clear your mind, save you time overall, and give you fresh insight into the Facebook user experience that you can use to optimize your Facebook business page!

Step One: Unlike Pages

Have you ever wondered why you were being targeted certain ads that were completely irrelevant, or have you seen certain posts in your news feed that seemed totally out of place? For instance, I live in Georgia; why in the world do I “like” the Tuscaloosa Toyota page?!

As you’ve probably learned if you’ve gotten to the FB Ads unit of EBA, advertisers are using your liked pages to market to you. Unliking pages helps both you and brands have a better social media experience overall–they will better be able to serve people who actively like their product/page, and when you do see ads, you will see ads more relevant to your needs.

Advertisers are using your liked pages to market to you. Unliking pages helps both you and brands have a better social media experience overall! #eliteblogacademy #socialmediaprotips #declutteryourfacebook Click to Tweet

Make short work of this project by visiting https://www.facebook.com/pages/?category=liked and clicking the “Get Started” button under the “Review Liked Pages” box in the top right section of the page.

From there, it’s easy! You can simply select all the pages you no longer want to follow, hit “next” and then confirm your action.

Congrats, you’re on your way to having a decluttered page! Didn’t that feel amazing?

If you’re not sure whether you should still like a page, answer these questions:

1. Does it add value to your life in some way to like this page?
2. Is seeing this page a good use of your time?
3. Does it make you laugh?
4. Does it inspire you?
5. Do you learn something?
6. Is this a location or brand you support?
7. Do you actively like it?

If you answered “no” to most of those questions, you should hit the unlike button!

Step Two: Edit Your Facebook Group Settings

Did you ever join a group but were then bombarded with posts and comments every few seconds blowing up your notifications and your news feed? Or even worse, did your friends add you to their MLM tarantula eyelashes or scented wax melts group without your consent? We’ve all been there! Here are some simple ways to clean up your Facebook groups!

Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/. You will see any pending group invites, your favorite groups, any groups you manage, and all the groups you have joined.

Click on the Gear Icon next to each group. From there, you will be able to leave the group and edit the group notification settings so that you can choose to be notified about all posts, highlights, friends’ posts, or not at all.

Leave any of the groups you don’t remember joining or are no longer interested in, and don’t be afraid to turn those notifications off! You can always set a group as a favorite and visit on your own time instead of getting constant notifications.

Step Three: Declutter and Organize Your Friends List

Do you have too many friends, or are you only Facebook friends because you think you have to be? Just because you are Facebook friends doesn’t mean you have to suffer through someone’s political ranting or constant negativity. It’s time to clean up that list!

Visit your Facebook profile and select “Friends”. You will see a list of your friends and a box by each person’s name. Within this box, you will be able to select or unselect the following:

• Get notifications—I don’t recommend turning this on for anyone except your very best and closest friends and family!
• Close friends—This will ensure you see your favorite friends first in your newsfeed, so make sure the right people are selected for this!
• Acquaintances–I recommend putting everyone you work with in this list!
• Add to another list–if you have a lot of friends it may be worth it to organize your friends into further lists, such as family members, local friends, friends from a certain group, etc.
• Unfriend—this one may give you heartburn, but my philosophy is if I go through my friends list and say “who??!” when I see their name, it’s time to quietly unfriend them! Chances are they won’t catch it because they’re saying “who??!” at your name too, but if you’re afraid of possible drama, simply tell them you are keeping your friends list small and intimate and regularly declutter people you don’t interact with often.

Bonus Tip: If you absolutely HAVE to stay friends with someone but don’t want to see certain posts, especially of the political persuasion, you can install a browser extension like F.B. Purity and instruct it to hide posts that contain certain words! You’ll still see it on your phone, but sometimes being able to hide certain items on Facebook can be SO freeing and protect your overall wellbeing and positive attitude, and no doubt you have learned how important it is to protect your confidence as a blogger!

Step Four: Be Intentional with Facebook Time

It can be so easy to mindlessly check our Facebook on our phones while procrastinating from doing other things or forcing ourselves to interact with people in real life social situations, but if you can get out of the habit of doing that, you will find yourself with more time on your hands and a better outlook on life too!

Make a plan to be intentional with your Facebook time, both for personal use and for your blog or business. Use a tool like The Living Well Planner or set a timer to time block set Facebook time, and stick to it! When your time’s up, it’s time to stop scrolling. The world isn’t going to end if you miss a certain meme or celebrity snafu or you don’t reply to your friend’s message right away, trust me!

Be sure to turn off your Facebook notifications in your phone settings as well. When it’s time to focus on your Facebook business page, be firm with yourself that you are going to focus just on that and not on any notifications that may come up. If you have to, write out your social media copy in a Word doc or Google doc first so you spend as little time in the actual Facebook platform as possible and then just paste into your page to schedule!

Write out your social media copy in a Word doc or Google doc first so you spend as little time in the actual Facebook platform as possible & then paste into your page to schedule! #eliteblogacademy #socialmedia Click to Tweet

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As bloggers there’s always so much to do, all the time. And the sheer amount of information out there can be so overwhelming and can potentially obstruct you from being able to create killer content and promote your blog and business on social media.

Taking a few minutes to declutter your personal Facebook will ultimately save you HOURS of time and improve your overall social media experience! You’ll see what you want to see from whom you want to see it, and you’ll be able to brainstorm more brilliant content for your social media page.

Where do you struggle when it comes to using social media for your blog or online business? Let me know in the comments!