To Friend or To Unfriend...That Is The Question

Back from a long, quiet spell...let's just say I've had my hands full with a marathon and a promotion at the office, but I'm back with some good stuff, again in the Facebook category.

What should you do with Facebook Friends that you would rather not Unfriend? Perhaps you  friended your boss, and now you are watching every move you make on Facebook. Or you have that Debbie Downer or overly political friend that inadvertantly takes over your Facebook NewsFeed and leaves you in a foul mood.

You have options that do not extend all the way to Unfriend, which they can eventually find out about. Consider these less draconian measures...

1. Use the Acquaintances option.

I hear you talking to your computer. "I have an Acquaintance option in Facebook?" Yep...congratulations...you do. And this is a prime time to use it.

The Acquaintance option is for Facebook Friends you don't need to stay in close contact with. And if you place someone on a Acquaintance list, Facebook will automatically cut back on the real estate those Facebook Friends get in your NewsFeed. That Friend will still pop-up from time to time for big events, but Facebook should pare back the Pinterest photos and hourly philosophical rants.

To use the Acquaintances option, just spot your Friend in the NewsFeed. Hover over their name. In the box which appears, click Friends and then choose Acquaintances from the popup. (And No, Lisa, you're not going on my Acquaintance list!)

2. Take 'em out all together.

You can nuke someone from your NewsFeed altogether. This means exactly what you think it does; the Facebook Friend disappears from your NewsFeed altogether. You can still, however, chat with them and you can still visit their Timeline to see what they have been busy with. But you don't have to see the NewsFeed stories at all.

To take someone's stories out of your NewsFeed, start down the same path as above. Find them in the NewsFeed. Hover over their name. In the box which appears, click Show in News Feed. Although not intuitive, that is actually an ON/OFF checkbox. Unchecking this takes them out of your NewsFeed.

Enjoy the peace.

3. Send them to the Restricted list.

This is probably the least known option, but one of the coolest. In this scenario, the Facebook Friend drops out of your NewsFeed. Mission Accomplished.

But additionally...they are much less likely to see your stuff in their NewsFeed either.

Read that again. Not only can you restrict what you see in YOUR NewsFeed, but you can restrict what content of yours that someone else sees in their NewsFeed. You can live in less fear of Mom seeing your 2am partying (and the resulting 9am hangover).

This feature lives one level deeper in Facebook. The first steps are the same. Find the name. Hover over it. Click the Friends button. Now click Add to another list... and then find Restricted, which is typically near the bottom.

Perhaps the best news about any of these options is that Facebook will never tell your Friend you have done any of this. And it helps you manage your NewsFeed into what you want to see. After all, it's YOUR NewsFeed.

The GRAPH APP Facebook Hoax, and what you SHOULD do

I'll be back with more on getting started with Twitter, as I have 1 or 2 more blog posts for new Tweeters, but I am taking a quick break to look at all buzz about Facebook's GRAPH APP, and your friends' desperate pleas for you to make changes in an effort to protect their privacy.

In a word...DON'T!

This is simply some outright false information, some misleading assumptions and some lousy recommendations spun in a blender and poured out as an incorrect strategy which has  virally spread across Facebook.

It looks something like this as an update from your Facebook friend:

WARNING!!! FACEBOOK HAS CHANGED THEIR PRIVACY SETTINGS ONCE MORE!!! DUE TO THE NEW “GRAPH APP” ANYONE ON FACEBOOK (INCLUDING OTHER COUNTRIES) CAN SEE YOUR PICTURES, LIKES, AND COMMENTS. The next 2 weeks I will be posting this, and please once you have done it please post DONE! Those of you who do not keep my information from going out to the public, I will have to DELETE YOU! I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!! This happens when our friends click “like” or “comment”… automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we cannot change this setting by ourselves because Facebook has configured it that way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “LIFE EVENTS” and “COMMENTS & LIKES”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy and paste this on your wall. Once I see this posted on your page, I will do the same……

Let's learn a little bit about what's going on here.

This is just simply false. If you have seen this, or if you have even posted this yourself, do not feel bad. It sounds very dramatic and urgent, but it is not.

The fact is, Facebook’s latest Graph Search does not make any of your personal data any more public than it always has been. Your information, your photos, your demographics and your data are available to the same audiences. All the Graph Search feature does is allow your data that your friends could have seen anyway appear if your friends search for something. If you post about Mexican restaurants in Austin, your friends will see your information if they search Facebook for Mexican restaurants in Austin. People that are not your friends won't see it. (And by the way, Hula Hut is my recommendation for location and great food. Unless you want fajitas, in which case you need to head here for the best in Austin.)

If you take the recommended steps, all you really do is remove your friend's updates, Likes and Comments from YOUR view. You are not protecting yourself, or them. You simply won't see their updates when you use Facebook. Why would you do that? Why remove your friends' updates from YOUR view? Isn't that why you are friends in the first place, so you can see what they are up to?

There are 3 recommendations I make to better protect your information, and they will quickly get progressively more draconian.

1. Reconfigure your Facebook Privacy Settings to Friends Only. Do this in Facebook by clicking the gear (Settings) icon in the upper-right next to your name. Then clicking Privacy Settings. This determines who can see your stuff, and that first line is critical. Setting that to Friends Only limits your data and your updates to your friends. Any line that reads Everyone is one I would trim back, as it means that information is open publicly, literally to anyone.
2. Set better boundaries on Facebook. If you really are that concerned about your friends knowing you like Mexican food, quit talking about it on Facebook. Or if you don't want to get Facebook ads about Caribbean vacations, stop clicking LIKE on all things Caribbean. It's really that simple. Every time you click, post, Like or Comment, Facebook learns something about you, and it is going to sell that data to its advertisers. To you, clicking LIKE is a game, a way of showing what you like. To Facebook and its customers, clicking LIKE is gold, signaling your interest in this, that and the other.
3. Get off of Facebook altogether. Yes, really. You are using a free service that allows you virtually unlimited communications in words, photos and messages with friends everywhere, for nothing. If you fear someone seeing a photo of your family, then honestly, it shouldn't be on Facebook in the first place. And perhaps you shouldn't be there either. Anything private enough that you fear it going public does not belong on your Facebook account. You didn't think Facebook was really truly free, did you?

Bottom line...don't take those recommended steps. You will only hose up your NewsFeed by blocking the very people sending you this message. And I would bet you a beer that 95% of your friends won't do a single thing if you sit tight. Really. Your energy is better spent considering what you are putting out on Facebook in the first place.

Unfriend and Unfollow...Who Done It?

The social networks do a fine job of telling you when you have new Friends and Followers. You receive an e-mail, and your mobile phone vibrates and makes a cute noise, and your count increments by one, alleviating and yet simultaneously enabling that 3rd grade fear about how popular you are.

YAY! I have a new friend.

Until...

That friend leaves...quietly...discreetly...hoping you won't notice.

The social networks generally won't tell you that you lost a connection. And I defy anyone to quickly notice that one person out of hundreds who quietly disappears from your NewsFeed.

Thankfully, there are some nice tools to help you figure out who left. 

For Twitter...
There is "Who Unfollowed Me" located at this link:
http://who.unfollowed.me/

This tool is VERY easy to use. Once you arrive, just click the big orange button at the top, then the magic begins. With your permission, this tool will begin tracking who has left you from that point onward. During subsequent visits, you will see who has left, and you can look at some helpful information exposing if this is a 2-way following, or just 1-way.

For Facebook...
There is Unfriend Finder located at this link:
https://www.unfriendfinder.com/download

This one requires some additional installation, but it is fairly easy as well. You will end up with some additional buttons integrated neatly into your Facebook page which will help you spot friends who have left, or those who simply never accepted your Friend request in the first place.

The key thing to understand about both of these tools...they only record your loss on a go-forward basis. In other words, they won't start working until the moment you first use them. This is because you have to let these tools take a look at your Followers and Friends, and only then can the tools determine when someone has left that baseline list.

So give it some time, and then you will have the inside scoop on who is no longer in your merry band of social media connectedness.