Hi! I’m Harma, and today I’m going to talk about curating your social media feed. Ever been puzzled by the excitement over a hot new social media platform? I remember being rather unimpressed by my Twitter feed when I first joined the platform, as I scrolled through many generic and self-promotional posts with little entertainment value. There was a lot of buzz around Twitter for writers at the time, but I was mystified about what value others were getting out of it.
Sometimes it’s just the strategy we use when we first join a platform. With Twitter, I had done what most people do when joining a new platform: first connect with friends and acquaintances, and second follow several big accounts Twitter suggested “writing” for one of my interests. It was only after some time on the platform, intentionally deciding to unfollow accounts that didn’t add value to my experience, and deliberately seeking out and following accounts on more niche topics, that I began to get sucked into Twitter. I could see what Twitter offered: a way to connect with fresh, timely views of interesting people you might never meet in real life.
This is when I realized how important it is to curate your social media feed. When you curate who you follow on a platform, it can completely change your experience. By only following the most popular accounts, you might miss the unique insights of smaller accounts that more directly connect with your interests. By only following friends and acquaintances, you might find yourself with little content in your feed, unless some of your acquaintances are regular posters. And each social media platform optimizes a totally different experience! Someone who is an interesting reality TV personality, for example, might not be interesting in the same way on Twitter – not everyone’s personality translates to 140 characters!
If you find yourself unable to see what the hype is about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or Clubhouse, here are some tips.
Tips on how to curate your social media feed
Find your niche
“Find your niche” is a common phrase for people building their audiences on social media – but it’s also a good phrase for those of us who are audiences as well! A “niche” is a smaller, more specific interest that perhaps less people overall are interested in, but the people who are interested in it are extremely passionate about it. You might not get a lot of value out of someone creating generic content about “books,” for example, but you may find a lot of value in someone crafting short book reviews of pulp novels from the 1930s, if that’s your thing.
If you see someone consistently commenting with interesting insights on a type of content that you love, check out their profile and see if they also create similar content. They might not be a massive account with a familiar name, but they might just create the kind of content that makes your experience more enjoyable.
Experiment
There’s more than one way to experience a specific platform. For example, I wasn’t always sure what people did on Instagram, because it didn’t seem to take long to scroll through my feed. Then a friend told me that she spends the majority of time on Instagram exploring the Instagram Stories, which was an area I hadn’t explored much myself. If you don’t see the appeal of a wildly popular platform, feel free to ask your friends what they actually do on that platform – maybe there are different ways of using it that you hadn’t thought of yourself!
Remove the clutter
Don’t be afraid to unfollow! If a profile clutters up your feed with the same type of posts over and over, or if a profile is constantly self-promotional, then it will greatly improve your experience to remove it. For example, I used to follow several “free book” accounts until I realized I never did take advantage of any of the free books they were offering.
And remember – you don’t have to feel bad about unfollowing. It just means their content wasn’t for you, it’s not a judgment on them that their content has no value for anyone.
Don’t hesitate to use all the tools a platform offers
If it’s a more personal connection, we can sometimes feel bad about unfollowing an account. It can feel like severing our relationship with that person. Some platforms offer ways to reduce the number of posts from an account you see in your feed without cutting off your connection entirely. For example, on Facebook you can “hide” posts, “snooze” pages, or stop receiving notifications from a specific page. Finding out what tools you have available to customize your feed, and take advantage of them!
Patience is key, especially at first
Remember, every platform has its own learning curve. When you first create an account on a new platform, it’s a bit like walking into a party full of strangers. You have no idea who’s interesting and who’s not. If you cling to familiar topics and acquaintances, you might be missing a unique opportunity to meet a topic or a person you truly connect with. So take the time to explore a little bit! It may take a little time to find conversations that fit, but once you start to find them you’ll see more and more of them on that platform.
These are some of the ways you can curate your feed to suit you for some of the major social media platforms we use every day. Hopefully you now feel confident to curate your own feed, and customize your experience!
If you’re on the hunt for more tips that will help you navigate your social platforms, click here to read more of our blogs!
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