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If you have a Facebook account, you may know that you have more than friends on Facebook. You also may follow have people who you aren’t Facebook friends with. You may follow celebrities or others who have a public Facebook profile.
You also might have people who follow you on Facebook, if your account isn’t private. That’s right, you might have a wide following on Facebook and not even realize it.
Finding who follows you on Facebook, and whom you follow, is quick and easy, if you know how to do it. With a few simple steps you can see this information and perhaps adjust your settings to make Facebook work better for you.
What Following on Facebook Is
You don’t necessarily have to friend someone on Facebook to have their posts end up in your News Feed. If you follow someone on Facebook who isn’t your friend, their public posts will appear in your News Feed, just as if they were your Facebook friend.
Similarly, if you’ve allowed others to follow you on Facebook, your public posts can appear in your followers’ News Feeds, even if you’re not Facebook friends with them. And you may not even know this is happening unless you check to see who is following you.
If you followed someone a while ago, you may not even remember that you follow them. And if you haven’t checked your Facebook settings in a while, you may not remember that you allowed others to follow you.
It’s a good idea to check your Facebook settings to see whom you’re following and who’s following you. Also, if you don’t want people to follow you on Facebook, be sure to turn off the setting for others to follow you.
How to See Whom You Follow on Facebook
To see whom you follow on Facebook, go to your home page and click Friends under your cover photo. Then tap More in the Friends section, not the More above it. (No, I’m not making this up, Facebook really made it quite confusing.)
A drop-down menu will appear. Click on Following to see whom you’re following.
If you’re following someone, you can send a friend request to that person directly from the Following page (unless they’ve disabled this option in their Facebook account settings).
How to See Who’s Following You on Facebook
If you have a public Facebook account, or have allowed followers, you can easily see who’s following you on Facebook.
You can go to My Facebook Followers page to see a list of people who follow you.
Or you can see who is following you from your Facebook home page. As with seeing whom you’re following on Facebook, you can see who is following you from the Friends section.
Go to your home page and click Friends under your cover photo.
Then tap More in the Friends section. Tap Followers to see how many followers you have and who they are.
If you don’t see Followers then either you don’t have any followers or you haven’t allowed people to follow you on Facebook.
In the list of names, you’ll see a Follow button next to people who will allow you to follow them. Click that to follow them. If they don’t allow you to follow them, you’ll see an Add Friend button so you can send them a friend request.
How to Turn Off the Ability for People to Follow You
If you don’t want people to follow you, or to check your settings, go to your Facebook home page. Click the down arrow at the right side of the top tool bar to reveal a drop-down menu. Click Settings.
On the Settings page, click Public Posts in the left column. At the top of the Public Posts page is a section called Who Can Follow Me.
On the right you’ll see either Public or Friends. If you have this set to Public, then people who aren’t your friends on Facebook can follow you and see your public posts in their News Feeds. If you see Friends, then people who aren’t friends with you on Facebook can’t follow you.
Make sure this setting is what works best for you. Feel free to change it if you aren’t comfortable with your current setting.
Your Thoughts
Do you follow people on Facebook? Do you allow others to follow you on Facebook? Have you checked your Facebook settings to see whether you’ve allowed people who aren’t your friends on Facebook to follow you?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
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*Follow the Leader photo (edited) courtesy of Walter Baxter via Wikimedia and Creative Commons
Hello Carolyn
This is such a great article, I will
definately see form now-on who are the ones following me
with this information.
Thank you for sharing this amazingarticle.
Hi Devika, Yes, you should check to see if anyone is following you. If not, you should check your settings to see whether you allow followers.
So, my FB page at the Friends page does not have the same selection. I took a screen shot but I guess there is no way to include it here (I just tried).
Mine shows: All Friends * Recently Added * Birthdays * High School * Hometown * Following
If I click on following it only show the 2 who are not my friends (I have total of 17 I am following). Is this because no one is following me?
Hi Carol, Make sure you go into your settings (instructions are in the article) to see whether your Facebook profile is public. Chances are you have set your account to private so you haven’t allowed others to follow you.
If you want others to be able to follow you, then change your account to public and allow followers.
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for sharing this one. I have always wondered how to check my followers. Now I know it.
Thanks again, have a great weekend.
Hi Sajid, Yes, many people may not realize they have allowed people to follow them and so may not know that what they post is appearing in the News Feeds of others. It’s a great idea to check your settings to see whether you have followers and change any settings you’re not comfortable with.
Hi CAROLYN,
I have tried your link My Facebook Followers page. But it says, “We couldn’t find anything for My followers”. What happens to my profile? please help me.
Hi DeSilva, You probably either don’t have any followers or haven’t allowed followers. Check you settings (explained in the article) to see whether you have allowed followers.
Hi, Thanks for the article. I knew how to check my followers but didn’t know how to check how to find who i follow. This was of help.
Hi Joddy, I’m glad you found this article to be helpful. Sometimes you wonder why people’s posts appear in your News Feed. This can help enlighten you so you can change your settings to make Facebook work better for you.
This is wonderful information I found there. Now, I can easily find my followers. Thanks for sharing such a cool and awesome post.
Hi Rasheed, I’m glad you found this article helpful. I hope you are able to discover who your followers are on Facebook.
It’s really annoying that Facebook hasn’t done anything to improve user interface in the last years.
I used to use it a lot to follow events and groups but every other day it becomes a little harder to use, I can’t imagine what it must be for my mum?! Real struggles!
Anyways, thanks a lot for sharing this.
Hi Kadijah, Excellent point. Finding out who is following you, if anyone, shouldn’t be so difficult. Perhaps people allowed others to follow them when they first set up Facebook but then forgot about the setting. Without knowing where to find your followers you may not realize that complete strangers are seeing your public posts in their News Feed.
I’m glad you found this article helpful, Kadijah. I hope you and your mom are able to enjoy Facebook more now.
Hello,
I’ve been using Facebook for a very long time, and I always used to see
people talking about their followers and stuff. Am glad that I came across your blog and came to know how to see your followers and following.
Great Post!!
Thank you, Carolyn.
Hi Trupti, I’m glad this was helpful to you. Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know your thoughts.
Thanks for sharing and its really valuable, Specially you explain with image, However, I want to know how can I turn my ” add friend” to “follow” only.
Hi Bharat, Great question. Some people don’t allow others to follow them if those people aren’t friends with them. So if you don’t see an option to follow someone you’re not friends with, then they haven’t allowed others to follow them.