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Digital Declutter: Put Your Best Face Forward On Facebook This Spring

Spring is officially here. We all know what that means, and there's no better time to get started on your spring cleaning than with a digital declutter. Facebook Canada has put together five easy tips to freshen up your Facebook profile and make sure you're putting your best face forward.
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Tara Moore via Getty Images
woman lying on bed working on laptop

It certainly doesn't feel like it yet, but with the Easter holiday around the corner, Spring is officially here. We all know what that means, and there's no better time to get started on your spring cleaning than with a digital declutter. Facebook Canada has put together five easy tips to freshen up your Facebook profile and make sure you're putting your best face forward.

Do a Privacy Checkup

Privacy Checkup takes you through three quick steps to take control of what you're sharing and who's seeing your stuff. You can review who you're posting to, which apps you're using and the privacy of key info on your profile.

How to do it?

The Privacy Checkup is always available via your Privacy Shortcuts on desktop (just click on the lock in the upper right-hand corner of your screen). You can also do this from your mobile device, in the iPhone or Android app, or on Facebook's mobile website.

Do a Security Checkup

Security Checkup helps you quickly and easily access some of the security controls available (all controls can still be accessed at any time in Security Settings) to help keep your account safe. It lets you log out of unused devices so you're only logged into Facebook on approved devices, set login alerts to get a notification or email when someone tries to log into your account and learn how to protect your password.

How to do it?

Security Checkup is available worldwide on desktop and Android. On desktop, head to Facebook.com/securitycheckup and follow the three easy steps. On Android, you can find Security Checkup within the Facebook Help Center in your Facebook app.

Control what information you're sharing with apps via Facebook Login

You've most likely used your Facebook account to log into a new app to avoid having to set up a whole new username and password. After all, more than 80% of the top 100 apps have the option to log in with Facebook. Now there's a quick and easy way to control what information you're providing to the app (such as your Likes, photos, birthday, hometown, etc.)

How to do it?

When you're logging into an app using Facebook Login, just click "Edit the Info You Provide." This will bring you to a list of all the personal information the app is requesting from you. You can check or uncheck each piece of information, line by line, to control what you share with the app. Plus, you don't have to be afraid the app will post on your timeline without your consent -- with Facebook Login, you choose whether to let the app post on your behalf.

Curate your News Feed

You're the only one who truly knows what is most meaningful to you, so Facebook gives you tools to control what you see. Take the opportunity to clean up your News Feed and make sure you're seeing more of the things you care about when you visit Facebook.

How to do it?

You can find some great controls within News Feed Preferences, which you can access by taping More in the bottom right-hand corner of your mobile app and selecting Settings. Here, you can select friends and Pages you would like to see at the top of your News Feed or choose to unfollow people or Pages so they don't appear in your News Feed. Remember, unfollowing is private so they won't know you've chosen to unfollow them, and you will still be friends on Facebook.

While you're at it, you can also take charge of what ads you see on Facebook by using Ads Preferences:

  1. Click the X or upside-down arrow near the top-right corner of any ad on Facebook, and select "Why am I seeing this?" You'll see an explanation of why you're seeing the ad, and you can add or remove yourself from audiences who are shown that ad.
  2. Click Manage your Ad Preferences to see more audiences you're a part of that influence which ads you see on Facebook. Changing your ad preferences influences which ads you see, but it won't change the total number of ads you see.

Update your profile

You can put your best face forward anytime by taking five to 10 minutes to refresh your profile.

How to do it?

Make sure your profile information is up-to-date and accurate. Hover over sections and specific items on your profile to add, edit, or delete information. The "About" section is a good central place to update information about you. For example, you can add up to 5 featured photos to help people get to know you better.

Update your profile photo and cover photo to something recent. Try one of our new features that bring a whole new dimension (literally!) to your profile:

  1. Profile Video: Film a short, looping video clip (up to 7 seconds) that will play for anyone who visits your profile. Profile videos appear at the top your profile just like a profile picture. You can currently only add a profile video from iPhone. Just go to your profile, tap your profile picture or video and select Take a New Profile Video or Upload from Camera Roll.
  2. Temporary Profiles: Be creative and set a temporary profile picture when you want to show support for your team on game day, support a cause like Celebrate Pride, or my personal favourite, "Vacation Mode." When you upload a profile picture from iPhone or Android, you can choose to have it expire after a set amount of time. Once your profile picture expires, it'll automatically switch back to your previous profile picture. Go to your profile, tap your profile picture, selected Upload Photo and then Make Temporary to set when you'd like the picture to expire.

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