When you open one of your social media pages it should, in the words of Marie Kondo, spark joy. If you’re logging in because you feel you ‘have to’ or some other feeling that makes it seem like a chore then it’s time to tackle making your social media work for you. Not you for it.
As users we give social media companies a lot of power over our lives. We give them our names, where we are, our ages. Connections. Search results. Every cookie we accept tells them more. Which can help get you information you really need and want. But if you’re not seeing the things you want then let’s get to work.
Go ahead on over to a social media site. Maybe Facebook. Scroll through your feed. Did you see ads you didn’t care about? Did you not see posts from friends you would like to? Change that!
Tell Facebook that you don’t want to see ads like that. Tell it over and over again. It confuses the AI that’s serving you content. Great! Computers want things to calculate. Make the AI really look at what you’re doing and then try to predict what you want. Tell it when you don’t agree.
Go unfriend some people! Gasp! I know, it seems like a bad thing. But it is quite the opposite. Reducing and changing the friends you connect with on Facebook means the AI is put to work again and recalculates the content you see.
Your Facebook feed depends a lot on what you’ve done and the places you’ve visited. The more you tell it, the better your experience will be.
Now go and do the same on Twitter and Instagram. Tell those platforms that you don’t want to see ads. Unfollow people. Cut, cut , cut. You can always follow them again later if you miss them. Want to warn people you’re cutting them out? Sure. You don’t need to. Your feeds are yours.
Social media should be fun. Take control. Look forward to connecting via social platforms. It can be one of life’s little joys.