Decluttering your Facebook Feed.

I've been spending my morning hiding posts by other bloggers. Not because I dislike other bloggers, but because I find that some bloggers spam incessantly and it has come to a point where the posts of my family and friends get lost in the sea of repetitive couponing posts.

How did it get this way? Well, it seems like every coupon, frugal living, mommy, and whatever else blog has a giveaway going on; in order to enter yourself in those giveaways, you have to like a large number of Facebook pages, mostly of frugal bloggers but occasionally odd pages slip in there too. This is a good way for blogs to build Facebook likes, but I wonder if the number of likes actually corresponds to more page hits or better yet, more readers. I would like to know that my posts are being read more than I would enjoy seeing my 'like' totals rise.

The problem with adding all of these pages is that when each one posts something, it comes into your feed. And there are a significant number of blogs who spam several posts at a time or the same post over and over during the day. Neither of these practices are adding to my Facebook experience nor are they giving me any incentive to visit the blog. It also seems to me that the blogs who tend to utilize such practices also do little in the way of writing, they simply copy paste ads and links. While that is helpful for a lot of people, I prefer to read as well. I like learning tips from my fellow frugal bloggers, I enjoy hearing opinions. I suppose what I am saying is that as much as I like deals, I prefer blogs with substance.

Short of opting out of blog giveaways altogether, I have only come up with two ways of combating the never ending feed, either hiding all posts by offending blogs or creating a separate facebook account simply for couponing stuff. The problem with a separate facebook page is that you have to keep switching back and forth and I guess I am just too lazy to do that. Instead, I have opted to hide posts. I choose the posts I hide by annoyance factor, I suppose. I keep all local bloggers in my feed as well as any bloggers who have liked my page, the former I do because I wish to support my local community and the latter because it is polite and I have found those who liked my page to be worth the read. At the end of the day, I still feel like there are enough blogs in my feed that I am not going to miss a deal and yet I can still find the posts of my family and friends.

I'm curious as to how others deal with this issue and wonder if it follows through to other social networking sites. I don't have a personal twitter, so all of my twitter activity is blog related, no issues there. I haven't done a lot with google+ but I assume the circles feature is helpful there.