Like most people, I use Facebook to keep up with old friends. However, I also use it – from my profile – to create publicity for my journalistic work for an interested audience, some of whom are also Friends, some of whom are subscribers, and some of whom just wander in.
The status updates I make are almost all exclusively aimed at the second group of people, and as such my default privacy setting is Public. That said, I don't want to spam my old friends (unless they explicitly opt in) with my posts aimed at a specific interested audience.
Ideally, I want to set the Custom Privacy of all new status updates to Share this with: "Public," and Don't share this with: "Real Life Only" (a custom list of old friends who might not be interested in my publicism).
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be giving me that option – when I try to type "Public" or "Everyone" into the box next to "Share this with," no options present themselves.
Is there a way to make Facebook do what I'm asking?
PS. I'm not interested in getting a public Page. Tried that, too much hassle managing it, and seem to have lower reach than profiles anyway.
Best Answer
This isn't possible with the current set of privacy options.
Let the Facebook newsfeed algorithm and your friends' judgements take care of filtering the spam perspective for your friends.