Why? Because the Facebook social networking experience can be precisely what you want to make of it. Think of Facebook as a professional tool, and that’s what it is. It doesn’t matter how millions of high school and college students are using Facebook to get out of doing homework. You can make it into whatever you want, even your own personal media broadcasting channel.
Let’s look at 12 ways Facebook can benefit the web worker, particularly those who are home-based. The more connected you are to your co-workers and clients without being intrusive, the better your working relationship. Note: you may need to have an existing Facebook profile to follow some of these links.
Think of it like personalizing your desk
You can’t help it. When you walk by someone’s desk, your eye is drawn to the pictures and the way they have personalized and organized their space.You pick up on clues to their lives without realizing it. Mary is a Mom whose desk is filled with pictures of two young children, and there are ‘To Mommy’ pictures pinned to the side of her cubicle.
You can see the paperback that Bill is reading on the corner of his desk.
‘Hey, I’ve been meaning to read that. Can I borrow it when you’re done?’ Sally has a collection of labels from her favorite wine bottles. You know what to get her for her birthday.
Only display on your profile what you’d put on your desk.
Just because Steve owns a picture his buddy took of him getting sick after an all-night party doesn’t mean he’s going to frame it and put it out for his co-workers to admire. Don’t add anything to your profile that you wouldn’t display for your supervisors, co-workers and clients to see as they’re walking by your work environment.Look for old co-workers and current connections. I found more contacts on Facebook this way than I did on LinkedIn.
Former colleagues have ‘Googled’ me, and after a few emails to catch up we don’t communicate again. By adding these people to Facebook, I feel more connected to them without having to actively maintain a conversation via email. Look for business opportunities out of shared interests.
Add friends selectively.
Contrary to popular belief, Facebook isn’t about ‘collecting’ friends. There’s no reward for quantity, and you can have a rich experience on the platform with only a handful of connections. The quality of your Facebook experience will be based on the quality of the people in your network. Create a limited profile for those people that you are on the fence about whether to include. By default your limited profile contains everything in your full profile, so take the time to edit it down.Add apps selectively.
Right now, there are over 2000 apps you can add to your Facebook profile. The temptation may be to try them all. Don’t. Just because you can add Love Quotes to your profile, it doesn’t mean you should if you want Facebook to be a professional tool for you. Pick apps that won’t waste your time when you visit your Facebook home page, so avoid those that involve playing games. Read/Write Web offers a selection of top apps for work. Read the app description carefully and know exactly what you’re getting, and what the privacy settings are before you go. It helps to see how your contacts are using the app first. But never fear, worst comes to worst you can remove an app as easily as you added it.Think of your apps in two waywhat do you want to see (that will appear on your Facebook home page) and what do I want the world to see (that will appear on your profile) You might consider adding an app that you don’t display on your profile at all, but it uses the collective wisdom and usage patterns of your network to provide you with valuable information. Or, if you visit your Facebook home page often it can help keep you organized having nothing to do with your friends’ actions.
Edit your news feed preferences.
You don’t necessarily have to know the moment someone adds a new picture, but you may want to know when they’ve made a new connection you may have in common. Click the ‘preferences’ button on your Facebook home page and use the sliders to give preference to the type of information you want. The more you fine-tune this information, the less time you’ll waste sifting through useless updates.Edit your profile and security settings.
Give careful consideration to exactly who sees your profile and when. Don’t take the default settings which tend to expose more information than you may be comfortable. Take the time to go through each link in the Privacy area and make necessary adjustments. Maybe you don’t want people who are casually searching to know who your friends are or ‘poke’ you.Maybe you don’t want a public profile (accessible to people who are not on Facebook). Facebook can come back to bite you as Miss New Jersey learned.
This is especially true if your primary network is geography-based. It’s one thing to share your full profile with everyone who went to the same college or high school you did, it’s another to share your profile with everyone.
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