How do I Use the Follow Feature on Facebook?

Sure, your friends enjoy seeing your posts on Facebook.

You may be surprised, though, to learn that it’s not only your friends who are taking an interest in your experiences and thoughts. There are others out there who may want to know more about what you post and would like to have access to it.  In addition, there may be some information you’d like to post publicly to help grow your business and connect you with people you are not friends with yet on Facebook.

That’s where the Facebook Follow feature comes in. If you decide that you would like to people other than just your friends know what’s going on in your world, you can edit your settings to let yourself be followed.

It’s simple:

• Go to your settings
• Click Followers in the left-hand column
• Then choose Everybody next to Who Can Follow Me
• Your followers will then be able to see posts that you share as public in their News Feed.

At this point you can manage your follower settings. To do this:

• Go to your settings and click Followers in the left-hand column.
• From here, click Follower Comments to choose who can comment on your public posts
• Click Follower Notifications to edit your notifications from followers.

So why would you want followers anyway?

Simple: adding the follower option is an easy way to expand your online presence and get the word out about who you are and what you do.

Think about it this way: when you have followers, it’s your audience coming to you! Followers give you a wider marketing audience, more fans and greater credibility. You simply can’t turn that down.

Friend requests you aren’t sure what to do about?

We’ve all had that awkward moment. The moment we receive a friend request from someone we aren’t sure if we want to friend or not; that person you just met at a get-together, the friend-of-a-friend, your co-worker, and others.

We’ve all been there – looking at a friend request and debating whether to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

When you have the follower feature enabled on your profile, even if you don’t accept the request, that person will automatically follow you. Of course, if you would rather that they not follow you, you can always deny the request. 

Reached the maximum number of friends?

If you have reached the maximum number of friends allowed on Facebook (5,000), adding followers is a great way to connect with more people.

Choose to post to Public or to Friends

Facebook has nuanced its settings so that when you post, you can choose whether your audience Public or Friends.

A good rule of thumb is to keep posts public if you’re talking about your business, but you might choose to just post personal things to your friends. This is a good time to review your privacy settings as well.

You can adjust the audience you are posting to from your desktop or any mobile device.

Questions? Leave me a comment below or on my Facebook Page!