Category: Facebook

This just happened to me last week and I wanted to share the situation as an illustration of how Facebook can bring you business.

I worked with a client several years ago. Recently we connected on Facebook. We really did not have much interaction, but we were Facebook Friends. I noticed the other day that he had posted on his wall that he was having a very serious health issue and was worried. I posted a note on his wall in support and as I am a Christian I offered to pray for his need and family. I followed the progress of his situation closely and actively prayed as he went through his testing and diagnosis. Everything turned out fine fortunately for him and that was a blessing for both of us.

By sharing his need, he had a well spring of concerned friends on Facebook rise up to help pray for his need and offer emotional support. This was a wonderful blessing to both him and to his friends who read the messages of support from his Facebook community.

What happened through our online exchange afterward though proves the real power of connecting and sharing using Facebook.

In my specific case this previous client, due to our recent interaction then referred another colleague to me for services and then approached me to do more work for his own website and book project. Now, I did not post to his Facebook wall to get business, but to express a heartfelt concern for him, but when people connect, they sometimes like to do business together. This is the power of Facebook. Facebook provides an environment to share, to connect, to help. In doing so you can sometimes reap the rewards of a connection with increased business opportunities.

If you are not showing the “real” you on Facebook, now’s the time to drop your “corporate mask” and stretch yourself. People want to connect with the you on Facebook give it a try and  you may find out as I have, that Facebook can definitely bring you business.

No one will tell you you’ve broken one of the unspoken rules … they will just defriend you, and you’ll never know. Here are my do’s and don’ts for Facebook users to help you not fall into the defriended pit.

1. Don’t post status updates more than three times a day on Facebook! If you want to post more often use Twitter. If you post more frequently than three times a day, Facebook friends will think that you are spamming them. Their own wall will be covered with your updates. There is no faster way for a friend to either hide you from their wall or to defriend you (both which you will never know) than to update too frequently.

2. If you are an avid Twitter user like me, don’t feed your tweets to Facebook as status updates. Disable this push to Facebook and use Ping.fm to update your Facebook and other social networking status feeds with one click and then only two or three times a day. Twitter users love regular updates throughout the day, but Facebook users don’t. See number 2!

3. Don’t inundate people with games. An occasional game is fine to turn your friends on to but not one a day! If you game a lot on Facebook, and I have some business clients’ support staff who have friended me on Facebook, and based on the number of games they play is seems to me that they spend their full work day on Facebook. I wonder if my client knows that.

4. If you are an employer try to Facebook friend your employees. One it helps you stay connected, and two it also allows you a window to see how much time they are spending on Facebook – see number 3.

5. Do use Facebook to share your life but don’t get too personal. People who have connected with you do want to know where you went on vacation, but they may not want to know about your ingrown toenail surgery especially not the gory details. Be careful of saying something controversial aw well, as remember your comment may be posted on your friends, friends, friends wall and not just on your own.

6. Do use the privacy settings on Facebook to control what the public versus your friends see. Additionally, if you find that a friend posts racy or off color comments do right click on the wall post and choose to hide them from your friends or for that comment or for the future.

7. Do post pictures and videos. I don’t think a video of the birth of your grand baby in the delivery room is appropriate, but if you see a funny video on YouTube, share it and give all your friends a laugh too. Remember not just your friends see what you share but friends of friends and the general public unless you have enabled additional privacy settings.

You will never know when someone defriends you or hides your posts and comments from their wall and their friends. So follow these few simple tips to stay connected and not end up just interacting with yourself on Facebook as everyone has blocked you.

Sorting my friends into lists has revolutionized my experience on Facebook. If you have not started to use this relatively new feature then you really should consider doing so.

You need to access all you friends first. Go to the menu bar item on the left sidebar that says All Connections. On this page will will see a list of all of your friends and their photos. on the left side of their listing click the link there, as I have all mine in lists, my link says “lists”, yours may say something different. Mouse over create a new list and create a category for that person. I have my account set up with lists for Family, Friends, Work, and Acquaintances.

Work your way through your friends list assigning friends to one or more lists that you have created. Now, go back to your profile home page. You will see a new navigation feature under status updates with the name of your new lists. You can sort how your lists appear there by just dragging them into the order you would like.

For me, no longer do I have to wade through the wall postings and status updates of acquaintances that clutter up my home page, I can go to family and see immediately what my son or nephew is doing. Using lists is a huge time saver and as your Facebook account grows allows you to stay in control over what you see in a glance.

Almost a month ago Facebook rolled out some new privacy setting features giving you greater control over who can see what on your Facebook account. It has taken me a while to get around to reviewing how to use these new settings and if you were like me, you may not have reviewed them yet.

First, you can access these settings once you login to your account by clicking privacy on the top links where you would access your profile settings. Mouse over the link called settings and a drop down box will appear with an option called “Privacy Settings”. You will have several options in each of the links that appear on the next screen. You will be offered setting updates for your profile, search, news feed and wall, and applications.

Work your way through each setting deciding whether you want videos and photos to show and to whom in your network. You can even select if photos you are tagged in will appear on just your wall or your friends’ walls. You can choose how much or how little to show in each category.

Additionally, the new settings allow you to control exactly what from your friends shows on your wall as well. For me, as I am friends with young people in my family but use Facebook for work and personal combined, I do not necessarily want business acquaintances to see what the young people in my network are doing and saying. Another really big thing that I have just started using, in addition to the privacy settings, is the Facebook grouping feature. I’ll talk about that Wednesday so make sure to check back.