Facebook is very much the Granddad of Social Media and it has had many years to grow and evolve. Arguably it is also the most complicated, let’s face it when compared to the likes of Twitter/X there is no contest. It is for this reason that I have put together this article Facebook for Spoonies to help Spoonies (and Spoonie Bloggers) get the most out of Facebook.
Your Facebook Profile
I am sure you might know this already, but I know some get confused. Only you can see what is on your timeline. Each user has their own timeline created by all the posts their friends have shared. I have heard people worry if they receive a post with inappropriate language, etc thinking people who are friends with them will see it. They won’t unless they are also friends with the author of the post. If you visit a friend’s profile, you will see their messages and those that their friends have tagged them in. You will not see all the posts visible on their timeline from their friends. I hope that clarifies this if you were struggling.
Who are you talking to?
When life changes, as it does if you develop a chronic illness. Reduced energy levels often mean that your social life increasingly happens via social media. One of the first things I realised is that your whole social network don’t want swamping with conversations about your condition. Raising awareness is one thing getting into the nitty gritty is another. At this point there are two things you can do, and this depends if you are blogging about Fibromyalgia or not. If you are a blogger, I will cover this later in the post. For now, I am talking to those spoonies who are just using Facebook to network.
Organising Your Friends
If you are anything like me, you will have friends from many areas of your life. Naturally, some of my friends are evergreen and these friendships overlap many areas of life. But I have cultivated other friends through specific experiences: school, College, work, church, hobbies, being a spoonie etc you get the idea. So I like to organise my friends into lists. To do this, you need to go to:
and choose the drop-down arrow next to Friends:
Here you can choose Add to another list and either use one of the built in lists, or create your own meaningful one. So now when you want to chat to your Spoonie Friends specifically you can create your conversation:
Then choose the drop-down arrow for the news feed (I have mine defaulted to public and then change it as I need to), the drop-down gives you these options:
Choose the More option and then “See All” to extend the options further and then you can select your “Spoonie” list. I know that you can be part of a group like the Fibro Connect group but sometimes, it helps to talk to your specific friends rather than a wider group. Also, you may have spoonie friends who are not in any groups.
Planning a surprise?
You may not have noticed before, but Facebook gives you the option of letting all your friends with one (or some) exceptions receive a message. This is great if you are organising a surprise for someone. You just need to hope someone doesn’t reply and tag that person in.
Facebook plays nicely with Instagram
If you are a regular Instagram user, you probably know that Facebook now owns Instagram and therefore the two play nicely together. It is possible in Instagram to share your gallery, and story images to Facebook directly. I share my gallery images directly to my Facebook Page (and Twitter) and I share my InstaStories to my Facebook profile.
Facebook Pages for Spoonie Bloggers
If you have a blog, the best thing you can do is create a Facebook Page for it. This is the Facebook Page for my main blog and here is the page for this newer blog. The benefits of having a page include: sharing all your blog posts to it (trust me your non-spoonie friends will not want to see these regularly, and those who do will follow your page) Sharing fellow Spoonies Blog Posts, the more you share the better your page will be, this is not a place where competition is good, the spoonie world is a community and we all have different experiences. Sharing is caring to quote the phrase.
Creating a Facebook Page
To create a page for your blog, you need to go to this page, the community option will suit the needs of most people. You can see the actual differences on this page. In a nutshell, the business option includes details you will want to display if you have a physical shop like your address and a map. Before creating the page you may want to spend some time thinking about a title or give it the same name as your blog. The category is likely to be Health & Wellness but if not chose a more appropriate option. You then need to follow the guide through, if you have any question please drop me a message and I will do my best to help you.
Does that cover Facebook for Spoonies?
I hope in this brief guide I have answered some questions and given you some ideas. If there is anything more, you would like to know or areas you would like me to go into more detail about please let me know. I am happy to extend this post or have a series of posts about Facebook. I plan on doing a similar post about Instagram soon.
