03/04/2024
Facebook feeds are becoming ever more frustrating.Whether you're a consumer or a creator, Mari Smith has some useful advice the *might* help you take back some control.
Have you noticed lately how filled your Facebook feed is with all kinds of irrelevant content from people and business you don't even know? And way more ads than ever? 🤯 Maybe lots of older content as well?! 🤔
In a blatant attempt to compete with TikTok, Meta has been utterly relentless in pushing out its 'AI-powered discovery engine.'
This is the algorithm that basically tracks your every move and strives to know you better than anyone on the planet.. And then you start getting all this recommended content in your feeds, supposedly predicting what you'll be interested in.
It's the same algorithm across Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
And, it's the very same formula that has made TikTok so successful and 'sticky.'
Our brains get these dopamine hits because there's an element of surprise; you never know what you're going to get. 😮
BUT, to be fair, there's also a mega element of frustration as well, right?!
Because if the discovery engine gets too carried away, then your feeds are pretty much rendered useless.
The good news is there *are* ways to train all the Meta feed algorithms... somewhat! Here are my suggestions for you:
💥💥🚂 8 STEPS TO TRAIN YOUR FACEBOOK FEED 🚂 💥💥
1️⃣ Adjust the settings per post by clicking/tapping the 3 dots on any organic post in your feed. You can choose to hide, show more, show less, snooze, unfollow. You can also do the same for ads. And you also can get to 'Manage your Feed' under the 3 dots on any post. Yes, this practice can be super time consuming. But it can be worth a try!
2️⃣ Take advantage of answering the poll any time Facebook asks if you want to see MORE or LESS of something (a post or ad).
3️⃣ Make good use of your FAVORITES lists. This is where you can add up to 30 different friends, people you follow, or business pages as a Favorite. You're supposed to be able to see more of these sources in your main feed. But, see #4 below!
4️⃣ Start interacting with more of your Favorite people and Friends in the DMs. This informs the algos that you want to see more of those sources of content.
5️⃣ Periodically look at your FEEDS. This shows the full chronological content in each feed. On both desktop and mobile, you have the option to see individual feeds for: All (default), Favorites, Friends, Groups, and Pages. Engage with content in these feeds to help train the algorithms.
6️⃣ Regularly skim the FRIENDS feed, in particular, and engage with specific people. This should help train the algos to show you more of those friends. Just remember that if you have a lot of friends and a few that tend to post huge volumes, just know those folks will dominate your Friends Feed! 🤪 (But see #7!)
7️⃣ Review your entire list of friends (maybe about 1x/year), and don't be afraid to unfriend people you genuinely do not know... or who have deactivated their accounts, or who haven't posted in eons, or who push out huge volumes of daily content that you're not interested in. Make your own criteria of that's important to you for unfriending. (Tbh, I'm not a fan of those posts we see doing the rounds where people say they'll only keep friends that engage with a certain post. To me, that's not really fair, given we're all at the same disadvantage of how the algos work and not everyone will see such posts!)
8️⃣ Go through all the Pages you like/follow - it may be time to unlike/unfollow some there, too. And potentially add more likes/follows that genuinely interest you.
Alas, we'll never get 'rid' of the suggested content fully. Because that's Meta's agenda. And, apparently, it is driving more time on site: about 6-7% for both Facebook and Instagram. So there's that. Hmm.
What else would you add to this list?
I'd love to hear from you. What are you currently experiencing with your Meta feeds?
