Social Media

Bloom vs Brick – Which App Blocker is the Best?

Ever since Facebook started to force creators with pages to pay for Meta One to post links, I have done everything in my power to try and get off social media as much as possible.

Yes, I need to be on it for work- sometimes even for long periods of time (sadly). But given that the rest of it is one giant time suck, with most feeds not even showing me what I want to see these days, it felt like a good time to do something about it.

One lament I always had was that my phone does not have easy ways to set app restrictions inherently. Phone producers, much like social media, seem to really, really want you on your phone all the time. So, we had to start searching for 3rd parties to find a solution that worked for us as simply taking apps off the home screen only worked so well.

It was because of this that I discovered two devices/services that can block apps, Brick (a tappable square device) and Bloom (a credit card-shaped device with a new tappable device like Brick), and decided to try out both to see which is better!

Although you could argue pros and cons for each, and may find your personal scenario lends you to one over the other, I wanted to break down some of these similarities and differences in this one as, to be honest, they’re both very similar!

Note: I am still working my way through all the functionality on these devices and my opinions may change in the future. This article is based on my initial testing on each device. This review may be updated in the future if any extra opinions, quirks, or other scenarios present themselves that I have not noticed yet.

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Meta One Subscriptions Made Me Change My Ad Budget to $0

I’ve been a user of Facebook since the early days- back when it was The Facebook and only accessible to current college students at a handful of universities. Yes, the early, early days.

Naturally, I’ve always had a strong presence on the app for my many blogs, as Facebook was historically the best social network out there to find new fans, build and reach an audience, and grow a small business (particularly for my local blog thanks to the app’s historically great ad location-based targeting tools).

In September 2026, Meta rolled out new subscriptions for professional pages, known as Meta One, which includes finite link shares (which are now heavily limited outright), and more at rates ranging from just a few dollars a month to upwards of $499 per month for unlimited link postings.

But because this came along with restrictions in how many free links accounts were able to post in any given month, I had a decision to make, and that decision was I have dropped my advertising spend on Facebook to $0.

Facebook ads are now no longer a part of my marketing plan and seemingly won’t be for the foreseeable future.

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5 Social Media Conspiracy Theories That Could Have Legs

Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?

In the world of blogging, content creation, and social media, there are a ton of them that are, we’ll be the first to admit, very outlandish.

But still, many conspiracy theories have some kernel of truth in them, no matter how small (whether we know about it or not!), and that is where things can get rather interesting.

So let’s put our tinfoil hats on and talk about some social media conspiracy theories that are out there right now!

Note: These are all conspiracy theories we have heard in passing that, to be clear, are likely nonsense. While we cannot say that any of these are actually true in this reality, given everything going on, we wouldn’t be surprised if some elements are more spot on than we realize.

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5 Things to Know Switching a Private Facebook Group Public

In late 2025, Facebook announced that private Facebook groups would have the opportunity to switch to public for the first time.

This was music to my ears, as my private Facebook group had grown substantially in recent years, from just a few thousand followers when I initially switched it to private to over 140k followers at the time of writing this article.

But despite the announcement, the rollout of private groups going public was neither instant nor uniform, and larger groups seemed to not get the option until much later. It wasn’t until June 2026 that I had the opportunity to switch my group to public, and after consulting with our own private Facebook group here at This Week in Blogging, I made the leap as the positives seemed to outweigh any potential negatives I was worried about.

So in this one, I thought I would share some observations of what happened after the switch to help those who may be considering doing the same.

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7 Reasons Why I Hate Being Called an Influencer

It seems like every decade or so, new media gets a buzzword that immediately goes toxic.

A word becomes popularized, it becomes beaten to death, and a large number of people cringe every time they hear it.

Right now, that word is influencer, and I really, really hate being called one.

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3 Ways to Minimize Social Media Use on Your Phone

For those who read This Week in Blogging regularly, it should be somewhat obvious that I do not like being constantly on, constantly working, and, perhaps worst of all, spending a lot of that time on social media in particular.

So in 2026, I set a goal to detox from my phone. Although this was primarily with social media in mind, it really is for all the things- playing on Instagram, reading Reddit, searching the web, etc. I was simply on my phone far too much!

Since most social networks have made their services worse purely to keep you on their pages longer, I just threw my hands up and decided to do the opposite. So in this one, I thought I’d share three things I’m doing to help minimize my screen time.

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5 Lessons Learned from Growing an AI Facebook Page

AI has become the bane of content creators around the world for many reasons. From LLMs ripping off our content to AI accounts, pages, and tools being propped up by networks left and right, there really is a lot of bad uses of AI in the world these days.

I generally do not use AI for any of my blogs, except for perhaps doing some mundane tasks like brainstorming or figuring out a calculation when doing analytics. But I also recognize that AI is seemingly not going anywhere, and so if networks are propping up accounts on the engagement-at-all-costs model, I thought I’d create a project that was purely dedicated to using AI tools from the start- AI images, AI copy, AI generated ads, and even an AI generated logo.

My goal? To see what all I could learn about launching a new brand in the age of AI, if being a solely AI page helps or hurts, and, long-term, if I could get the page to become part of any social bonus programs to earn revenue.

While I’m still waiting on the last bit, I’ve had some lessons learned in the first few months of launching the site.

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How to Fix Your Facebook Feed to See Content You Like

Do you absolutely hate how much garbage is in your Facebook feed these days? Join the club.

The primary feeds on the popular social network have leaned heavily into discovery-style recommendations lately, making it almost impossible to see content from friends, family, and the groups or pages you’ve explicitly opted into receiving updates from.

One day after getting infuriated that everything that I was being suggested was, well, garbage, I tried to see if I could get my Facebook feeds to be better curated to show me what I want.

I knew there was a friends tab, a groups tab, and more, but on their own, they all felt lacking. But what I didn’t know is that there’s an overall Feeds tab that shows all of these in one, exactly like Facebook used to be when it was actually good.

So in this one, I want to talk about this feed and how you can access it more easily on both desktop and mobile.

Note: I use a Pixel 9 for my phone. I cannot guarantee that these steps work on all models. If you notice any differences in your phone, please get in touch and let us know and we’ll update accordingly.

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Broadcast Channels Are A Hidden Gem on Facebook and Instagram

For the longest time, I was reluctant to start a Broadcast Channel on Facebook and Instagram. My notifications were already blowing up from too many accounts starting broadcast channels, and I, quite honestly, just found it all very annoying that I ignored it completely.

It wasn’t until seeing a post from a blogger in a private Facebook group I’m in hailing the success of broadcast channels (on Facebook, specifically) that my interest was piqued, and I decided to give it a go.

So in this one, we thought we’d share a few misconceptions about what Broadcast Channels are, and why you may want to consider starting one.

Note: I primarily use Broadcast Channels on my Facebook page; however, they also exist on Instagram. This article primarily focuses on my Facebook experience even if the ideas are similar on both.

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3 Unique Facebook Features to Build Your Brand

When it comes to promoting our blogs on Facebook, there are a number of features you may want to consider within Pages and Groups. There are so many features, in fact, that it may be hard to keep them all straight.

In this one, we thought we’d highlight a few unique features that we use on Facebook Pages and Groups that when combined together create a rather interesting funnel for brand building- starting with getting people to like your page, moving to join a group, and ultimately subscribing to your newsletter.

So let’s take a look at some interesting features you may not be aware of!

Note: As with most things, those with larger accounts may see bigger benefits than others with a multi-step funnel. For reference, at the time of writing my Facebook page had 132k followers, Facebook group had 123k members, and my Threads account has approximately 7k followers.

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This Week in Blogging
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