PR Company, Internet Marketing

How to make the most of Facebook’s privacy settings

When you work in internet marketing, or public relations it is almost impossible not to have a Facebook profile. If you advise clients to use Facebook to engage with customers and increase sales through social media, then you need to be familiar with the user interface to be efficient in your job. What you also need to be familiar with is the customer journey as it’s not all about the theory of what makes customers click on your Facebook ads, like your page or interact with your brand.

The problem with having a Facebook profile when you work on the internet is your personal reputation and your “online footprint”. You need to be much more careful about the information you publish about yourself on social networking websites as clients, potentials clients, your boss and maybe even competitors could be looking to find out more about you.

For those who aren’t so familiar with Facebook and its privacy settings, here are a few key things to bear in mind when you are trying to keep a tighter control on who can see what information so you don’t have to miss out on using Facebook for socialising online while trying to maintain a professional appearance.

Privacy settings – you can make your profile unsearchable so that you do not appear in Google search results for your name or in Facebook search results then, only friends can see your profile. However, this means that people who you know can’t search for you and you have to find the people who you want to be friends with.

Friend lists – just like Twitter, you can create lists of all your friends. You can then separate all the people you know and change the privacy settings by list. This is great if you want to add your work friends but don’t want to have to restrict status updates etc to each individual. Simply go in to your friends list and then create a list from there.

Status updates – you can restrict certain people or particular friend lists from viewing any status you might want to publish. Next to the ‘Share’ button is a little padlock, click on it and a small list will appear. If you click ‘Customise’ then a new box will pop up. You can then enter in the name of a list or the names of individuals you want the status to only be available to… or exclude from seeing the status update.

Photographs – it’s always photographs that people are sensitive about, after all, most people have had pictures taken of them enjoying a drink with friends. Unfortunately this doesn’t project a very professional image. Anyone can go back through their photo albums and then restrict who can view the albums by going in to ‘edit album’ and clicking on the privacy drop down button. From here you can make albums visible to only certain people or lists or exclude individuals or lists from viewing the album.

This isn’t by any means an exhaustive list of ways to stop others viewing your personal information but it’s a great start for those who are starting to find their feet in social media and would like to avoid becoming the centre of the latest Facebook faux-pas.  Remember that even your trusted friends could show images to the press or give away sensitive information!

To find out more about how you can incorporate social media into your company’s internet marketing strategy, contact JPR Marketing to discuss your requirements.

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