Facebook is an invaluable resource and we should really be using it to its fullest. When I initially joined Facebook it was primarily to keep in touch with friends, family and co-workers of past and present jobs. As time grew, it became more of an avenue to network, make business contacts and interact with business colleagues.

 

I use my personal page as an avenue to give people, clients and potential clients an opportunity to discover who I am as a person beyond the business persona. I use the Facebook Subscribe option to allow people to subscribe to my public updates which allows information that I select to display to the public as an avenue to “meet” me, read more about me as a person, see photos of friends & family and discover more about my background. I believe in being totally transparent so displaying so much of my information doesn’t bother me at all. I believe this to be a way for people to really get to know me before choosing to do business with me. For me that is only a positive thing.

 

A few ways to utilize your Facebook Personal page as a business networking channel:

 

• Privacy Settings & Lists: Although I am transparent, some information you may want to display to certain segments of your Facebook friends and some you may not. For instance if you have dog and you dressed him up in a ballerina costume for Halloween because you thought your friends and family would find this funny, you can display that ONLY to your friends and family if you have lists set up. The business contacts that are friends with you may not care about your dog or the goofy costume so its probably for the best that you do not allow them to view it.

• Timeline: For goodness sake stop dragging your feet, set up your Timeline. It presents a HUGE 850 x 314 Cover image in which to display a billboard of advertising space or your business. Take a look at my Facebook Cover Page below. If you hate Timeline and think its stupid, a display of your capabilities directly on your Facebook personal page is reason enough to suck it the hell up and hit the upgrade button.  Don’t make me hack your computer and do it for you. LOL Just kidding! Just do it already.

• Subscribe: Allow people to subscribe to your public updates. This is an amazing opportunity to meet some great contacts. If you chose this option remember to post information that you think people would find valuable about you and, that will display what you do in a positive light.

• Post Awareness: When you open your Facebook personal page to this degree you must always be cognizant of your postings and selecting to display those posts to the correct audience. So when you post use the drop down to chose who you want to see the post from your lists.   I have a huge amount of friends from Empire Avenue so I post information JUST for Empire Avenue friends which blocks others that wouldn’t care about Empire Avenue stuff.  I was a huge advocate of lists since I started using Facebook so selecting who I’d like to see my posts comes as second nature to me. However if you are not use to this , it may take some time to get use to. It is worth it.

 

 

I realize that some people guard their Facebook page like vaulted gold. I also know people are all blah..blah blah and all kinds of paranoid about their personal information, well guess what there is really no such thing as privacy anymore. JustSayin’ This is especially the case for the people that are yelling the loudest.  Coincidentally, those are the people that post everything from their mother in laws male pattern baldness to their dogs excessive gas issue to what kind of cream cheese they put on their bagel for breakfast. Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.

 

The bottom line is, open the door to a little business, reach out to more people, extend yourself a bit and unclench the reigns of your antiquated views on privacy which are non existent anymore. Open your network, make some contacts and go make some damn money. LOL

 

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