Facebook Interest lists for birders

Facebook Interest Lists - World Birding

by Gunnar on September 5, 2012 · 4 comments

in Social Media for birders

Facebook lists.

You probably already use Facebook lists to group your Facebook friends. I have my Facebook friends organized geographically in lists. Since a couple of months one may now also make lists that combine Facebook Pages and Profiles.
At the bottom of the left column in Home mode on Facebook  there is a header called INTERESTS.  It is a function that is somewhat concealed on Facebook, but it sure is a useful addition.  You can create your own Interest  lists or subscribe to interest lists created by others.

Here are a couple of interest lists I have created. They are a mash of influencers in various geographic areas plus a few other of my lists. If you like them you may want to subscribe to them.  Simply click on any of the feeds below and click Subscribe.

How to read Facebook Interest lists.

 If  you check the North America Birding Resource list you will notice, because of the upcoming presidential election, there are a lot of posts that does not have anything to do with birds. Many of the influencers only have their profiles where they post and have not separated their birding stuff from private opinion on other matters. This is normal for Facebook profiles.
Birding Influencers do well to also have a Facebook Page, where they only post stories reflecting their expertise.  David Sibley has a Facebook Page. So does Birdchick. But since the majority of influencers that I have featured in my lists, don’t have a Facebook Page, we simply have to put up with posts that have nothing to do with birds in the stream.  But there are a few tricks if there is too much.

Hide the posts you don’t like.

Very easy. Just click on Hide for each post where you don’t agree with Mr Eubanks.  You still want to see his stuff about birds though. When I first created these lists there was an option to actually hide a complete account, but this does not seem to be the case anymore.  Only the list owner may delete an account and does so permanently.

Eventually, I will delete profiles that are too noisy (as in posting too much stuff that is not relevant to birding).  I hope all birding influencers do get their own Facebook Pages and thus these feeds will be more useful. Meanwhile, do subscribe to the lists and please let me know which accounts you find too noisy and if there are other Facebook pages that should be included in my feeds. Place comments below or send me an email to kolibriexp@gmail.com.

Facebook Favorites – Make the Interest Lists more visable

One problem I have had is to actually return to the feeds and check them out once in a while.  They are totally concealed except for one or two at the bottom of the left sidebar in Home mode.  But there is help with the new Favorites function in the same sidebar, although it is a bit tricky.  Here is help:
Just follow these steps after you have added the lists you like to subscribe to.

  1. Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar to INTERESTS and hover the cursor over the side and the word MORE will appear. Click MORE.
  2. Each list will have an edit pencil next to it. Pass the cursor over the pencil and click Add to Favorites.
  3. Scroll up the sidebar to FAVORITES and now you will find your the interest lists in higher up the hierarchy and more visable.
  4. You can also add many of your favorite groups, pages and personal friends lists to Favorites.
  5. Rearrange: When the Favorites become too many you may want to place the most important ones on top. Just pass the cursor over any favorite you want to move and the edit pen will occur.  Click Rearrange and move around your favorites as you want. 

Hope this is helpful to you. Please let us know of great Facebook pages to add to our resources – except your own pages.  We already know that you are great ;-)

Gunnar Engblom

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Tagged as: Facebook, Gunnar Engblom, Interest lists, Social Media

Article by Gunnar Engblom

Gunnar Engblom, who was born in Sweden and lives in Peru, is BirdingBlogs.com's webmaster. He is a birder, runner, post-punkrocker and blogger and he is especially keen on social media for birders - which is how this project started in the first place. Gunnar Engblom organizes birding tours in Peru and the Neotropics with Kolibri Expeditions. Gunnar is passionate about new Peru tours that support community based ecotourism and conservation and has initiated several project this way. Gunnar blogs on his own blog - A birding blog from Peru

Gunnar has written 101 awesome articles for us.

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  • Nate

    Gunnar, please remove my personal page from the North American Birding Resources list. I don’t really appreciate not being asked if I want to participate.

    • http://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/birdingperu/blog/ Gunnar Engblom

      Nate, only public Facebook posts appear of course. The point is that everyone should be aware that anyone can make a Facebook Interest List and that anyone who likes can subscribe to it. We all need to be more careful what we post.

      • http://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/birdingperu/blog/ Gunnar Engblom

        You already had your privacy settings so that hardly anything you post is public, but shared only with your friends. Thus while you were on the list only your friends would see what you would post. In any case I have taken off your account from the list. The ideal would be that bloggers like yourself who posts important stuff about birding, would have also a Facebook Page. DId you ever think of setting up a Facebook Page for The Drinking BIrd?

  • Pingback: Things You’ll Find Interesting September 5, 2012 | Chuq Von Rospach, Photographer and Author

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