How To Improve Each Others' Facebook Experience

There are many ways to see more of what you want to on Facebook and less of what you don't. You can also help others do the same by being mindful of what you post and where and how you set your settings. I'm looking at ways to automate some of these changes. I'll let you know what I find.

You'll have to decide your own criteria of who to friend, who's friend request to accept, who to unfriend or unfollow and what pages to like or unlike or unfollow. I think a good starting point is thinking about what you want out of Facebook and whether it's giving you a good return on your investment of time, especially relative to what else you could be doing with your time. Also consider the kind of people you want to connect with, how and why.

Perhaps more important is what and who you don't want, in your Facebook feed or in your life. Consider the effect that certain posts and comments have on you. Sometimes, when we lean in to our reaction to a post or comment that we find disturbing or upsetting and examine our feelings, thoughts, and assumptions about it, we come away with more insight, empathy, compassion, hope and empowerment. Other times, a post just fuels toxic anger or hopelessness. People can be dismissive, cruel and less than careful or thorough in their thinking and typing. I could write a whole other post on what does and doesn't constitute respectful, constructive dialogue on the internet and how we can achieve it. I'm still figuring it out for myself. I think we'd likely have better luck communicating with each other in-person, or at least have better online discussions if we work to like and trust each other in real life.

Likewise, it's important to consider the effects of our posts and comments and our reasons for sharing them. At its best, social media is a conversation. Ask yourself, "Why am I talking?". Does what you are saying assume something that you don't or can't really know? Perhaps we'd do well to ask at least as many questions as we make statements.

See Less of What You Don't Want In Your Own Feed

• Submit and accept friend requests selectively. You can set your privacy preferences such that only friends of friends or no one at all can send you friend requests. Everyone will still be able to follow your public posts if you allow them to here.
• Click on the top right of a post for a drop down menu of actions, including unfollowing that person and hiding all posts from a page they were sharing from or liked a post from. You can also say that you don't like a post and even take a survey to make your news feed better.
• Unfriend people. You can unfriend people or move them to a different list on your friends page (https://www.facebook.com/[your.name]/friends). Just click their friend status to the right of their name and picture and select your desired option.
• Unlike pages. Just go to that page and click "unlike." 
• Unfollow people and pages. Unfollowing someone doesn't mean that they can't see your posts. You're still friends. They have no way of knowing that you've unfollowed them. You can still view friends and pages in the feeds of lists that you create. Friends and pages can be on multiple lists. You can unfollow a person by scrolling over their name in your friend list and click "Following" to change it to "Follow." You can unfollow a page by going to the page and clicking where it says "Following."
• Unsubscribe from groups, or adjust notification settings for your groups. You can do this here when logged in to Facebook.
• Adjust your news feed preferences. There is a link to do this in the drop down menu that appears when you click the icon on the top right of your Facebook page.
• Adjust your notifications settings. 

See More of What You Do Want In Your Feed

• Find groups to join where people post the kind of posts you want to see. You can browse suggested groups, your friends' groups, local groups and new groups here. You can also find groups doing a general keyword search on Facebook. They will be identified as the kind of group they are below their title.
• Find pages or lists of pages to like that share the kind of posts you want to see.  Learn more about interest lists here. You can choose update types and notification settings for lists. You can find lists to follow here.
• Click on Trending Topics. You can also hide trending topics that appear at the top of the right sidebar by clicking on the little x that appears when you scroll over it.
• Find people you may know on Facebook.

Avoid Cluttering Others' Feeds

• Follow, don't friend. You'll only see their public feed. They won't see yours unless they follow it or visit your page.
• Post to a relevant group instead or create your own group. If no group exists, create one and invite or add your friends.
• Restrict your post visibility to only those it relates to. You can change the visibility of past posts too. Wherever you see the visibility status, like "Public" or "Friends," just click on that to change it. Create a new friend list or customize visibility to be hidden from individual people if need be. You can also limit it to a geographic area. Remember that the visibility of your last post becomes the default for your next one.
• Consider creating a page for your business, project, hobby, or interest and inviting friends to like it. Odds are good that some of your friends are not interested in posts about it. If you are even a minor and/or local celebrity, you can create a page for yourself as a "public figure" and keep your posts related to your public persona there. Already have a page? You don't have to share your page update on your personal Facebook account every time, just occasionally invite new friends that you think might actually like your page to do so.
• Review your timeline and tagging settings. You can limit what people see on your timeline here.
• Consider messaging instead of posting to a friends' wall. When a friend posts to another friend's wall, I see it in my feed. They could hide it in their timeline settings, but they don't. Sometimes it's a good use of the wall, like a happy birthday wish. Other times, it's something better suited to a private conversation, like saying they should get together sometime.
• Manage the Sections that appear on your profile and your timeline (I think). You'll find the link to do this at the bottom of the "More" drop down menu below your cover photo on your profile (https://www.facebook.com/[your.name]. Why am I confused? Because the only explanation Facebook gives for this feature is, "Uncheck to hide sections. Individual stories in hidden sections can still appear on your Timeline, in News Feed and elsewhere on Facebook." I'm guessing that means that because you hid it there doesn't mean that it won't show up when someone else posts it, but it's not clear.
• Review your timeline occasionally. Click on the little padlock icon in the top right of your screen to do a "Privacy Checkup" or see who can see your stuff.

Get and Keep Your Friends' and Followers' Attention

• Limit your posts so they don't unfollow or unfriend you.
• Message or call them instead.
• Add your friend to a group you belong to that you really think they would want to be in.  They can remove themselves if they don't want to be in it. They can also opt to disallow anyone else from adding them to it again. Review Facebook's privacy options for groups to understand how they work.
• Create a secret Facebook group and add friends to it to start a private discussion.
• Create an event and invite them.
• Tag them in your posts, photos and comments, and your friends' photos. Don't tag people in photos they're not in though. If you were with them when and where the photo was taken, you can tag them in the post.
• Create an interest list of public pages and/or people and share it in a post. You can manage update types and notification settings and choose who can see a list.
• Use hashtags. This only works if they're looking for that hashtag though and might see many other posts before yours. You can create a secret, uncommon hashtag for you and your friends.

Engage!

• Make a date to message, call, Skype, do a Google Hangout or actually meet in person with one or several of your friends or family. You can use a Doodle poll to find a date and time that works.
• For more than 10 people, you can stream video live on YouTube if your channel is verified and in good standing. You'll also be able to see and respond to viewer comments live. Try it and leave a comment saying how it went.
• Get off the computer to meet people face-to-face and in-person more and do things you enjoy. Join a group on Meetup.com or find local events on Eventbrite.com and, yes, Facebook. You might want to consider online dating on sites like OKCupid.com, but, well that's another post.
• Find a volunteer opportunity on a site like volunteermatch.org, createthegood.org or a local listing of opportunities.
• Get involved in local activism. Maybe you have an ActivateHub in your city or could start one, or just google causes you care about and the name of your city in Google to find organizations working on those causes near you.
• Get involved in local politics. Your local government website should have links to information about your neighborhood board or association and city council. There may be meetings or hearings or elections that need candidates. You can also contact your elected officials with concerns you have.
• Start a part-time business doing something you enjoy.
• Go back to school or take online courses on sites like teamtreehouse.com. Online courses won't get you off the computer, but they could lead to something that would and are probably a more productive use of your time than arguing with trolls online.