Let’s face it, not even the most advanced programming in the world can save your Facebook News Feed. The goal of the feature is to display the stories that matter most to you, and although the social network continues to tweak the formulas powering its recommendation engine, it’s not always the best at ranking posts based on your interests and interaction. Fortunately, Facebook is finally giving you some granular control over what shows up in your feed, essentially allowing you to quickly prioritize posts from specified friends and Pages so you never miss a beat when browsing.
The newly minted feature — known as “See First” — pins stories that are important to you, to the top of your News Feed. It will still let you view the rest of your News Feed as you normally would, once you scroll beyond the highlights at the top. Currently exclusive to iOS devices, it’s quick and painless to set up. Follow the directions below for all the details, so you can keep up on the people and pages you actually care about.
Step 1: Launch the Facebook app on your iOS device and tap the More button located in the bottom-right corner. Afterward, scroll to the bottom of the resulting menu and select News Feed Preferences near the bottom of the list.
Step 2: Tap Prioritize who to see first at the top of the resulting page and choose whose posts you don’t want to miss, whether talking pages, friends, or figures. Tap Done in the upper-left corner when finished to implement the changes.
If only Facebook’s News Feed algorithm weren’t so terrible. If only Facebook had an automatic unfriending function that were you to not talk to someone for years, they would just disappear from your contact list. If only Facebook really could tell who you wanted news from the most. But if you aren’t brave enough to pull the unfriend trigger and don’t want to spend too much time organizing your feed, we have another recommendation for you: Facebook Lists. You might not think you need them, but you absolutely do. Read our guide for instructions on how to maximize Facebook Lists.
