With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, many of us are thinking about our relationships, especially the ones with our spouse, partner, or significant other.

But for me, Valentine’s Day makes me think about ALL my relationships, not just the more intimate ones.

 

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some tips for sharing posts on Facebook with the different “audiences” in your life and for staying abreast of their posts.

Tracking the Facebook Posts of Your Close Friends

1. Assign your closest friends in real life to the Close Friends category on Facebook. Doing this will place a star by their names when you review all your friends under the Friends tab on your personal timeline.
2. Make the Close Friends list a Favorite, so it appears relatively high when you go to your Home page. That way, you can easily check on the posts made by your Close Friends simply by clicking on this list.
3. Consider setting your notifications so that you are notified on Facebook whenever posts are made by people on your Close Friends list. You can also choose to have these notifications sent to the email address you have associated with your Facebook account.

 

Make Sure Your Facebook Posts are Not Seen by Facebook Acquaintances

Let’s say you only want your Facebook posts to be seen by all your Facebook friends, but not by those you have assigned to the status of Acquaintance on Facebook.

Acquaintances could potentially include relatives you aren’t that close to, but you accepted their Facebook friend request. Or maybe they are current or past co-workers you didn’t have the heart to turn down a friend request from, but you don’t want them knowing too many details about your personal life.

1. Start by reviewing all your Facebook friends and making a note of which ones you consider to be a acquaintances.
2. Go the personal Facebook page of each person on that list. Under the Friends button on their page, select the Acquaintance option. (This is the time consuming part, but you only have to do it once.)
3. From your own page, go to Facebook’s privacy settings (click on the cog wheel icon on the top right of your screen to access the drop down option called Settings).
4. Click on Privacy (on the left side of the page).
5. Click on “Who can see your future posts? This is the first setting you can review in the privacy settings.
6. Click on Edit. This will show you a drop down list from which you can choose the “Friends except acquaintances” option.

Now when you post, only those of your Facebook friends who aren’t assigned Acquaintance status will see your posts. You can also make this selection for an individual post, rather than use it as your default setting.

 

How About You?

How do you like to stay abreast of the posts of your closer friends with whom you are connected on Facebook? Have you considered customizing all your posts or some selected posts so that only some of your Facebook friends can see them?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.