Facebook interest lists are a great way of monitoring news around a particular topic or beat, enabling users to create a custom newsfeed similar to a Twitter list.

Lists help you to organise posts from brands, news outlets or public figures, and – if you have one Facebook account for both personal and professional use – keep them separate from posts published by family and friends.

You can subscribe to other users' lists, or create your own. Because you have the option to make lists public in order for people to subscribe to them, they are also a good way of demonstrating knowledge and expertise, and helping others to find information that is of interest to them.

To find out more about how you can create or follow Facebook lists, you can watch the short video above or follow the steps below.

How to create a Facebook list

1. Login to Facebook and go to your 'interests' page, which you will see in the bookmarks section in the left column of your homepage.

2. Click the 'add interests' button. Here you can see lists that other users have created, which you can subscribe to using the 'follow' button.

3. To curate your own list, click 'create list', type the names of the Pages or people you want to include and click to select them.

You do not have to 'like' a Page or follow a person to be able to add them. However, a person must have 'follow' enabled on their profile in order for you to include them.

4. Once you have selected the people and Pages you want to add to your list, click 'next'. From here you can name your list, and choose whether you want to make it public, private, or viewable only to friends.

When creating a public list, remember to use a name that will make it easy to find when others search for lists to subscribe to.

5. When you are finished. click 'done'. You will now see your new list under the 'interests' tab to the left of your Facebook newsfeed.

6. When viewing your list, you can re-name or edit it to add or remove members by using the dropdown options under 'manage list'.

To delete a list, select it underneath your bookmarks, click the options cog, then click 'delete'.

7. You can distribute your lists using the 'share' on the list page, which enables you to post to your own timeline or another users, to a group, on a page you manage or in a private message.

8. To view interest lists in the Facebook mobile app, click the 'more' tab in the bottom right corner and scroll down until you get to the 'interests' bookmark.

However, it is not yet possible to create, edit or delete Facebook lists in the app.

Facebook mobile screengrab
Screengrab from Facebook app

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