Following Facebook Pages Without Liking Them

Towards the top of every Facebook page, you’ll find a "Like" button and a "Follow" button. But, unlike Facebook Timelines -- which sometimes allow you to follow individuals whom you haven’t befriended -- you can’t follow any Facebook pages that you haven’t first liked. Hence, you must click a Facebook page’s Like button to activate its "Follow" button, which otherwise remains dimmed. Creating a Facebook interest list helps you work around this limitation. While you may not see posts on your news feed from the Facebook pages on the list, you can follow their posts separately, exclusively and on demand.

Navigate to your Facebook home page. Scroll down to the bottom of the left pane and click “Add Interests.”

Click “Create list,” followed by “Pages” if it’s not already selected on the source pane to the left. All the Facebook pages you’ve previously liked are displayed on the main pane to the right.

Choose one or several previously-liked Facebook pages to add to your interest list, as desired. Since you will now be following these pages through an interest list, you can opt to unlike them later to avoid seeing their posts again on your news feed.

Select a Facebook page category, such as “News” -- or type a familiar name, such as “CNN,” in the Search bar. Click on every Facebook page displayed in the search results that you’re interested in following. Observe “Selected” on the lower left -- it keeps count of your choices. Click “Next.”

Name your list in the List Name field -- for example, “Special Pages I Follow” -- and then activate the radio button that corresponds with the level of visibility you’d like it to have. Choose from three options: Public, Friends and Only Me. Click “Done.”

Navigate to your home page. Click on your new interest list at the bottom of the left sidebar. Browse through the posts from the select group of Facebook pages that comprise your list.