Facebook's Missing Friends.

Although the majority of Irish people over 15 are using Facebook have you accumulated many friends and noticed you've lost contact with most of them? They are still there, they're still posting and interacting, but you're not seeing their posts. We really were expecting to see all these posts so why is this not the case?

Facebook provides a free means to connect with 100's and 100's of people on a personal level. We've all been taking full advantage of this, joining groups and following numerous pages of interest to compile a personal news feed from a global network.

By becoming 'friend collectors' perhaps we've lost sight of what we first thought Facebook was for? Is this the reason why I've heard many complain that their News Feeds are not as good as they once were?

It's quite likely that whilst the social media giant has been evolving and constantly adjusting settings through frequent updates we have not changed how we use it.

A few users have really embraced this platform acquiring hundreds, sometimes thousands, of followers but no matter how many connections you actually have there's now a high chance you're missing 90% of their postings. The reason for this is perhaps down to a few limiting factors:

Space.

There's simply not enough on your screen to display even half your friends who might simply make a weekly posting.

Engagement

Your online time is crucial to Facebook's success since it is profitable to them for advertising. Our new mobile phones come with the App pre installed so they're sponsoring even our hardware.

To fully engage with it's platform the array of services has been growing so that you don't need to use anyone else's App: news, messages, notifications, website browsing, event invitations, games, business, maps, video and voice calls. An all encompassing online service and it's FREE to use.

Some worry about how search engines profit from our browsing data and habits. Consider your personal Facebook data and how much it actually knows about you online and in real life, your connections and how you interact.

Profit.

With so many posts being made each second Businesses and Groups desperately want you to see their postings first and Facebook knows a lot about it's users. With a vast audience using the free platform 'money talks' in promoting those posts to a targeted audience.

Your FREE news feed is being sponsored by those keen for you to engage with them.

You can't pay to filter out the adverts or suggestions and there's just enough personal news feed to keep you engaged and checking frequently which is perhaps their aim.

If you don't like what you see in your news feed then there are a few things you can do to improve it:

Interactions

Facebook learns from your behaviour. It records what you click on, view, how you use the like icons, what types of things you share and what causes you to comment.

Therefore limit the number of pages you follow and like. Don't interact with those you don't want to see more of.

Settings

Adjust your page 'follow and notification' settings to influence what you get to see first but be highly selective or it doesn't work.

It's not free

Appreciate that this App is free to use but someone needs to pay for it and adverts are inevitable.

Form Groups

Remove all unwanted adverts by inviting your friends to join a private group. Similar to group messages it can be set up so that only those invited can interact and you're likely to see everything. If the group is smaller enough you can actually see who's missed something you deem important.

Adjusting your personal news feed depends on you and how keen a sponsor is to have you see their ads and Facebook Inc has the final say. However changing your behaviour should have a dramatic effect on what you see and it should become more appealing.

Whether or not your own postings get seen by others is heading the same way as Business, Activity and Interest Pages so read the Facebook for Advertising article. It's not good news.