How to Not Let Facebook Consume Your Life as a Blogger
Have you ever sat down to just “glance” through your Facebook newsfeed and then looked up an hour later? That never happens, right? Facebook (and other social media) can be so much fun and it’s so easy to just keep clicking around, totally losing track of time.
Like many of you, I am on Facebook to connect with my friends, but also for my blog. I might be the only one, but when I sit down to look at Facebook for my blog, I tend to get distracted REALLY EASILY when I see posts from my friends and family. I waste far too much time clicking around seeing what everyone is up to!
As it is, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love being able to keep in touch with friends and family that live far away (and friends that live down the street too). In the past I’ve struggled with contentment and Facebook fueled the problem. The amount of people that see the posts on my business page is often frustrating. I know that many bloggers have given up on this social media platform because of this. However, even with the number of people that see my posts, Facebook still brings a decent amount of traffic to my site. Because of that, I can’t ignore it.
So between the need for blog referral traffic and the potential of wasting a large amount of time on Facebook , I had to come up with some sort of solution or I was going to have to deactivate my account. Facebook was consuming my life!
Can I tell you the BRILLIANT solution I found to this problem of losing hours in my day?
There are three parts to it. You better sit down. They are MIND BLOWING!!
- Pin this for later!
1. Set a timer!
Amazing, isn’t it? Yes, when I sit down to look at social media, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, I turn on a timer. If I don’t, I get sucked in and I will lose track of time. I installed the chrome extension “1-click timer” and it works great! It plays nice music at the end of the time instead of startling me with a loud obnoxious beep. (Before I did that I always had to hunt down our kitchen timer that the kids had “needed” to use somewhere else in the house.)
2. Set up Interest Lists on Facebook
One other way I found to stay focused on Facebook when I am using it for business is to set up interest lists. Like I said earlier, I get distracted by my friends in my newsfeed. So instead of scrolling through my newsfeed to see pages and people I want to follow for my blog, I added all those types of pages to an interest list. (You can see it here if you are interested.) Each day I set my timer for 10-15 minutes (some days one time, other days a couple time throughout the day) and scroll through the list. From the list, I collect links to share with my followers, I comment on posts as my business, I click over to articles and pin them to Pinterest and sometimes I save things in One Note to share in my newsletter. This saves me SO MUCH TIME!
Here are a few pictures to walk you through how to set up an interest list.
- Once you are on a page you’d like to add to a list, click on the arrow next to the Liked button. Then choose, “Add to interest Lists.”
- Choose which list you’d like to add the page to or create a new group. (I chose my list called Blogging for the page in this picture.)
- Back on your main Facebook Newsfeed page, look for the list over in the left hand column. If you see it, click on it and you’ll see posts from all the pages on the list. If you don’t see it listed, look at the next picture for instructions.
- In the left column on your main Facebook page, find the heading that says “Interests” and click on it. That will take you to the settings in the next picture.
- Click on the settings button next to the Interest group you’d like to see over in the left column and click “Add to Favorites.” Once you do that, you should see the group appear over on the left.
3. Turn off your Facebook notifications.
When I started getting decent engagement on my Facebook page I turned off all my Facebook email notifications and even removed the Facebook app from the main screen of my phone. If your phone is notifying you all day long and you are constantly checking it, you’ll never get anything else done. (I’m speaking from experience here.) I check my page and private Facebook group a few times a day (using a timer) and that’s really helped me stay more productive the rest of the day!
At first I was worried I would miss things. But when I log on to Facebook, I go to the globe and see the notifications from there. If there are a bunch of them, I open each new one in a new tab (by holding down Ctrl on the keyboard while clicking) so I make sure I don’t miss any.
That’s how I’ve managed to save time on Facebook for my blog. Nothing crazy, but with those 3 simple “tricks,” I am able to stay more focused and not let Facebook consume my life.
So now that I’ve saved you time (you’re welcome), can I ask you a favor? It will just take a second. I promise.
I know most people reading this post are not my target audience. (I blog about being married to a chef and raising a family with a chef.) If you know someone married to or dating someone in the restaurant industry, (a chef, server, line cook, manager, bartender, etc.) will you share my blog via email with them? I appreciate your help in getting the word out about my blog. (If that email link doesn’t work in your browser, please use the sharing buttons below to share it. Thanks!)
Other posts in this series:
From one chef wife (or blogger) to another,
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