Good News & Bad News about Facebook Interest Lists

This is a public service annoucements for Facebook users. If you don't use Facebook to follow the latest news on your favorite businesses, blogs and people, then you can skip this post. I promise that my next post will have tons of vintage awesomeness in it.

UPDATE [November 16, 2012]: The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Enough people complained to Facebook, that they added a new option for Pages called Get Notifications. Hover over the Liked button on your favorite pages (and people) and check off Get Notifications. Now, whenever that page posts an update, you'll get the little red notification number on the globe across the top of your page. Also make sure that "Show in News Feed" is checked.

So, hopefully, you won't even need Interest Lists (although they might be handy for organizing & categorizing lots of pages). But I'll leave my post intact below, in case Facebook decides to change their mind again...

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By now, you've probably seen a zillion posts about how Facebook has royally screwed the owners of business pages (including freshvintage), and our posts aren't appearing in your News Feeds. Your friends are telling you something along these lines:

To keep seeing us in your news feed, you have to hover the mouse on the "Like" button near our name. In the drop-down menu select "Add to Interest  Lists". Then, create an interest list. When you select that interest list you will see ALL of our posts and you won't miss anything!

You may have already done that for a few Pages here and there. But did you know that you can save time and add a BUNCH of your PAGES at one time?! 

I will show you how to do it. I'll also break some bad news about Interest Lists, straight from Facebook's own Help pages. Interest Lists may not be the miracle cure that everyone is claiming them to be. More on that later.

The Good News First...

Here's how to add a bunch of pages to your Interest List at one time:

First, go to your personal profile (go to www.facebook.com and click your name in the left corner).

Then, go to the bottom of the left column, and you'll see the Interest List you created. (If there isn't one there yet, then follow the directions above to add a new Interest List. Start with freshvintage!) 

I created a list called freshvintage faves. I made my list public, so anyone can read the feeds from the Pages on my Interest List. 

 

Click on your list, and you'll see the News Feed for everything in that list.

See the Manage List link in the upper right corner? Click it, and choose Edit List:

You can now see all the Pages that are already in your list. 

Here's the good part. Select "Pages" from the drop-down list in the upper left corner:

Here are ALL of the pages that you Like. Click on the ones that you want to add to your Interest List. My freshvintage faves list is mostly related to vintage, antiques, small businesses, crafts and other stuff I like. It doesn't include every single page that I "like".

Of course, you can also add friends to your list, and create separate Interest List for other topics.

Unfortunately, there is no "Select All" button. Which stinks, especially if you are like me, and "like" hundred of pages. But this method is easier than visiting individual Pages and adding them to your list one at a time. 

The Bad News:

I think it is also worth noting that simply adding Pages to your Interest List will NOT necessarily include all of their posts in your News Feed. Here is a quote from Facebook's own Help page about Interest Lists:

When you create or subscribe to a list, you'll see the best posts from that list in your main news feed. Your lists will also appear in the Interests section of your bookmarks. Simply click the list's name to see all the recent posts and activity from the Pages and people featured in the list, without overwhelming your main news feed.

What does "best posts from the list" mean? It certainly doesn't mean "all posts"! So, creating Interest Lists does not guarantee that you will see all posts in your News Feed! But if you click on the Interest List from your profile page, you will see all of the posts from your Interest List.

UPDATE: Once you create an Interest List, you will start to see an update in your main News Feed that lets you know how many new posts there are in your list. The actual posts from the list aren't there - you have to click on your list to read them all. Also, I don't know how often Facebook adds this type of update to your News Feed, so you are better off just clicking on the Interest List whenever you want to read all of the new posts.

Bottom Line:

Interest Lists are a step closer to improving the quality of your News Feed by including more updates from your favorite Pages. But, they will not include everything from those Pages. You still have to click on the actual Interest List to see all of the updates from your favorite pages.

So, when you are sitting around on a Friday night, drinking Chardonnay, make sure to click on your Interest List so you can catch-up on ALL of your favorite pages!

Of course, don't forget to add freshvintage to your list. And, if you are on your third glass of wine, visit my freshvintage faves Interest List - you may discover a few new favorites of your own!

Comments

[Alison]

Thanks Colleen for taking the time to write this post!

[Norma Oliver]

This is very disappointing to learn. :(

I generally only like biz pages from my personal page so their "like" numbers go up. Then I usually hide them. I "like" them again from my biz page (Norma's Kentiques) and look at their pages from their.

I've always tried to keep my biz interest separate from my personal stuff. I have lists on my personal page for: family, close friends, local friends, and cyber or distant friends I've made from a homeschooling board I'm part of.

It was just too much to have biz interested meshed in with it all so I would look at those when I went to my biz page.

Sign.... very frustrated. No fault of yours though and thanks for taking the time for this post, it's VERY informative.

[Suzanne Cooke]

Thanks as always Colleen. We have been getting less comments on our business facebooks lately and less likes! I will share this.

[Melissa's Antiques]

Thanks for sharing, Colleen! I didn't even know these interest lists existed. I was starting to wonder why I didn't see a lot of posts from my favorite pages...

[Dana]

This was sooo helpful Colleen. I am sharing it on facebook, not that anyone necessarily sees my posts apparently but it may help. Oh and glad to see that Circa Dee made your faves list.

[Into Vintage]

I'm only on my second glass of wine but I'll check out your faves.

Thanks for the info too. Super helpful especially for someone like me who doesn't log in to FB daily. I just love wondering why everything is completely different than the last time I logged in...

[Tara]

Hi!!' I was wondering if you know if Facebook has changed this once again!! I liked a new page today and tried to hover over the " like" but nothing came up for me to add it to an interest group!!! Help!!!!