Controlled sharing |

Let’s take a look at our Facebook Likes and see what we can do with them. When someone visits you on Facebook, they see your timeline, of course. What we’re going to do is take a look at what they see, not what you see. You can hide things from your friends but you can’t hide things from yourself. (That’s actually quite a pithy statement, isn’t it?)

Tip: To get the most out of our articles, set yourself up with another Facebook account. Do that now. Add yourself as a friend and open the new account in another browser (not the same browser you are using now). Go to your timeline in your new profile where you are a friend and get used to using the refresh button to see what affect the changes you make on your other profile have as your friends see it. You are editing one account in one browser and checking out the results in another account that is open in another browser. Get it? Yes, you can use the ‘view as’ button but that isn’t as fast as using a separate Facebook profile.

Here is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. The first photo is from the original person’s profile. The second one is how a friend sees the same profile. Note that the ‘Likes’ are different.

Photo of likes menu — **The two ‘likes’ show in this photo are hidden from everyone but are visible to the profile owner.**

Now that you can see why it is valuable to have two profiles, let’s get back to work. The next step is to show you the difference between sharing and allowing things to be seen on your timeline. So far, all of this has to do with YOUR stuff and YOUR actions. We’ll get into your various interactions later.

Your Facebook timeline is a constantly evolving record of what you do on Facebook. As long as you stick to simply sharing things, you can hide that from others, all or some or none. As we showed you in our last post, you choose whom you want to share your own stuff with. That post is here: Ultimate Guide Part One . Today, we’ll deal with your timeline and show you how to use its edit feature.

There are two ways, at least, to keep things off of your timeline. Let’s deal with your Activity log first. Head to your own timeline, click on your profile pic up on the top right then click on Activity log. The next page that opens is a long list of things you’ve done recently. Each of those things can be edited, depending on what it is. Two more pics will explain this better.

Photo of Activity log — **This item is something that someone else posted. Hovering our cursor over the circle icon, we can see that it is allowed on our timeline.**

In the photo above, there is a comment on something that was posted on someone’s profile. It is allowed on the timeline. How do we get it off the timeline?

Photo of Activity log 2 — **Because we commented on someone else’s post, we can ONLY delete the comment. That is the only way to get it off of our timeline.**

We can only delete the comment. Yes, this is going over the same stuff as our last post but we feel that we have to reinforce this concept. Let’s deal with something that we did. Facebook is more forgiving with things that you post yourself.

Photo of a photo — **This album is, for now, allowed on the timeline.**

Photo of another photo — **If you click on the circle, you can perform several actions as far as your timeline is concerned.**

If you put something up on Facebook, you can hide it from your timeline. It sounds simple but we think it gets a bit confusing (and frustrating) for some of you.

TIP: When you share something with some of your friends but not all of them, the former can see it on your timeline but the latter can’t. If you hide something from your timeline, you are hiding it from EVERYONE. More on this in the next post.

Thanks for reading!

By far, our most popular posts are on Facebook likes and how to hide them. We’ve decided to work on an ultimate guide to help you figure out what you can hide and what you can’t. Here we go!

Things you can hide from some or all of your friends: Anything that is yours, meaning anything that you post can be hidden from some or all of your friends. These items include photos, status updates, notes, things that you share that have been posted by others, etc. If you upload anything from your computer, that can be hidden. If you like a page either on Facebook or on the Internet, you can hide that after the fact , unless you want to hide all of your personal likes, such as music, movies and pages, completely.

Things that you can’t hide from anyone: Comments on anything that isn’t your own. You cannot hide a comment on something that is posted by someone else. Even if you like something that is posted by someone else, you can’t hide that from anyone. If it is a post by someone else, you can’t hide your like for it. If it is a Facebook page, no problem, you can hide the fact that you like it.

TIP: If you want to make a comment on something that isn’t yours and you don’t want your friends to see that comment, you can always send a message. However, if the person that you send the message to doesn’t like your comment, they may choose to ‘out’ you to the world, including any mutual friends you may have. We’ve seen many instances where people who are insulted or offended by a message, post that message on Facebook for all to see. Is it really worth your reputation to make that comment? Think about it.

Those are the basics of hiding your likes on Facebook. If you put it out there, you can share it or hide it, whatever you want. If someone else put it out there, you can’t hide your likes or comments.

Here is step one of hiding something that you want to share with some people, but not all of your friends. While this example is for something that someone else shared, once you share it you can set your audience. The same process works for photos, notes, videos and so on.

Photo of a Knob Head. — **This is what we want to share. Planet of the Knob Heads! How can we not share that?**

Photo of more Knob Heads — **See the share button? This shows up when you hover on it.**

Photo of a Knob — **The sharing dialogue opens up. Right now, it’s set to be shared with friends.**

Photo of a semi-Knob — **Choose your audience or click on ‘Custom’ to select an even narrower audience.**

Photo of menu — **Choose Specific People or list to make it available to them ONLY.**

Photo of another menu — ***You can also choose who to hide the post from. Start typing a name and Facebook will show you the choices you have.***

Warning/Tip: Don’t get confused here. You can choose two things in this menu. Choose who you want to see it or who you don’t want to see it. Make sure that you are clear on that. It’s pretty self-explanatory but a mistake here could cost you a friend or a relationship or, worst case scenario, a job. You’ve been warned.

OK, first post done. You now know how to hide what you put up on Facebook. Open the post to some people but not others, or hide it from some people but not others, it’s the same thing but don’t get confused. Next time, we’ll get into how to hide your likes. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun