Facebook is now the site I visit most often. And it’s not only to connect with my friends and family or post status updates…despite what people looking over my shoulder might think.
Since the launch of the Like button I’ve Liked a lot of the blogs I read or feel the need to follow. There are some blogs I follow only to see what they’re writing about – it’s a good way steal generate ideas, others I follow because I’m genuinely interested in what they publish.

Lost among the noise
I think Facebook is fast becoming the place where new content is first promoted. Whether it’s through some automated system (like RSS Graffiti) or a manual status update.
Because of this, and because my list of Liked sites continues to grow, I’ve noticed my personal Facebook page is mostly full of updates from websites and blogs, and not my Facebook friends. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it keeps me abreast of what’s going on almost in real-time. However, it kind of loses the point of why I joined Facebook.
And the crossover line between work-time and leisure-time becomes increasingly blurry.

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Facebook (almost) replaces my RSS reader
For me, Facebook is better than an RSS reader, where it’s easy for new posts to get lost in the crowd, and email updates, which I now find are the slowest way of keeping up to date with new posts.
Problogger is a great example of this. I’ve obviously Liked Darren’s Facebook page and I more often than not click over to read new articles when they’re published and promoted on Facebook, however, if I’d have waited for the email update before reading a new post, I may not have read it until many hours after the publication time.

Why does this matter? Comment links and traffic.
If you use comments to make yourself known in your niche or to generate traffic, it’s best to get in early. If you are one of the first few to leave a comment on a busy site like Problogger, you stand a better chance of getting click-throughs than the guy who leaves the 50th comment.
Facebook is ideal for getting in early.

Facebook profile page clean up
So, my personal Facebook page was too cluttered. I missed updates from my friends and family because they were absorbed by updates from my Liked sites. I decided to remove a lot of the sites I Liked for business purposes from my personal profile.
As I have a Facebook page for this site I decided to Like the business related sites through that. This allows me to separate work and leisure interests and makes my personal page cleaner and my friends’ updates more difficult to miss.
The first step was to Unlike all the pages that post status updates too often and that I consider business related.

How to Unlike a page on Facebook
The Unlike link doesn’t jump out at you when you first land on a Facebook page, but it’s there. Look at the text links at the bottom of the column on the left hand side of the page and you’ll see it.
Out of interest, here is a list of some of the pages I Like on Facebook.
Blog Engage
We Build Your Blog
Mashable
Firefox
Smart Passive Income
Lifehacker
IMDB
The Next Web
My Modern Metropolis
Small Business Trends
Search Engine Land
Web Urbanist
Freelance Folder
WebProNews
Friday Traffic Report
Blog World and New Media Expo
Remarkablogger
E-Junkie
Michael Gray
Evernote
WPMU DEV
Copyblogger
WordStream
Problogger
Build Rank Profit
Duct Tape Marketing
Digital Inspiration
Hongkiat.com
Sharon Hurley Hall
Yaro Starak
Mark Thompson
Freelance Switch
Hootsuite
Offer Vault
The Dash Community
Kikolani

After going through the list and Unliking these pages, I switched Facebook over to use it as my Page – Top right corner > Account > Use Facebook as Page and once again Liked everything on the list, this time as my Page.

Finding the updates feed (when using Facebook as page) isn’t as easy as it should be (is anything on Facebook?). First, click on the Facebook logo, then click on News Feed in the left hand column and the latest updates should appear on the page in the usual way.

This simple change has made a massive difference to the way I use Facebook. I can switch from business to leisure in just a few clicks, and I never lose track of what’s going on with my friends and family.
Status overload and personal page meltdown averted!

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