“GET OFF MY NEWS FEED! NEXT STEP IS CALLING THE POLICE!”
Uh-oh. Somebody really doesn’t like Facebook ads.
As a typical Facebook user, I don’t particularly like them either, especially as they’ve gotten inserted more and more into my Facebook experience.
As an admin for several Facebook Pages, I have to deal with them even more—and with responses to them.
For brands, Facebook has made ad space an opportunity nearly impossible to ignore if the business wants to survive and grow. You still need quality content, but attracting new fans and maintaining loyal ones isn’t as easy anymore. How do you keep from hijacking your own survival?
I don’t handle the ads, but I do the posting, responding, and moderating. I interact with people all day online while trying to provide content they actually want or need that still serves the organization.
“I detest the spam I get from this site in my NewsFeed, you’re like a bad rash!”
Ouch. Fortunately, the above comment and the one before are mercifully rare; most people seem to understand that the last thing a discerning brand wants to do is alienate people (right?). We’re all still working through Facebook’s dizzying, evolving array of ad choices and combinations of choices, and believe me, we appreciate your forbearance.
As both a discerning brand admin and a regular user of Facebook, I give out the same advice: If you’re sick of NewsFeed ads too, this might work (and it might not):
- Hover with your mouse on/touch your finger to the right side of the post that appears in the NewsFeed.
- Click Hide.
- Click Hide all stories.
Let me know if there’s a better way. As the adage goes, you can’t please everybody all of the time, but I want to make sure we treat the people who join our Facebook community as well as we can—without them having to call the police.
Author Becky Benishek 
It would be good, if the “active” link hide_all_stories would be active and if it would do something – for example switching off all the ads I have not asked for. Unfortunately on my FB NewsFeed that hyperlink (or button) is not doing anything – its dead. I can only hide one feed from the advertiser – and that’s it.
It is painful to remove ads one by one. But it is also painful to watch ads in the middle of my news feed. 😦
It seems that FB just does not have a clue what consumer testing is – or most probably they just do not care. They are just pushing their users in a NEW WAY of DOING THINGS (this can be also read “get more money for them”).
However one should be aware that current FB approach is not a new way of doing things. This is just a repeat of what we have seen in the past – in the time when a TV has been THE media for advertising. At that time ads were pushed on people – and this is what FB is trying to do (well, something even a bit worse than that).
I somehow believed that advertising push-approach ended (in its most annoying form) with a development of the social media and with the shift of so-called power to consumer. But it seems this has been an illusion. It seems that things are getting worse.
One thing is certain though – ads in the middle of MY NewsFeed are unforgivable. Maybe I should approach the FB the same way I approach TV when there are ads – I just switch to some other channel. There is one draw back with the social media though. To avoid annoying and “pushed” ads one has to switch to some other channel on a permanent basis. But in relation to FB that is OK too!
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Beautifully said.
The lack of a mute button or channel-changer on Facebook does make it worse than what we put up with on TV, as you said. I’d almost put this on a par with the commercials you have to sit through now at the movies, but those at least end at some point.
I wish brands had the control to say where they want their ads to show up, and more importantly where they DON’T want them to show up. An idyllic “Keep this ad off the News Feed” check box, for example.
Thanks for commenting!
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