Put Your Personal Facebook Account to Work

With online privacy concerns, many people worry about mixing business with pleasure on their social media accounts. No need to worry. With a few smart set-ups and extra care made when posting, you can use your personal Facebook account to brand yourself and your business.

Smart Move: Segment Your Friends into Lists

Are you hesitant about adding co-workers or business partners as friends on Facebook? As long as you take care in setting up and identifying your social circles, Facebook can be a great way to interact professionally as well as socially.

For those friends with whom you would like to share all your posts, add them to your Close Friends lists. For your professional contacts, designate them as Friends or Acquaintances. Creating these specific lists will allow you to control with whom you share your content, and how you share it.

By hovering over the Friends check-mark box, you can specify how much you want to share with this person. Are they a Close Friend? Friend? Acquaintance? You can even create custom lists based on mutual interests.

Smart Move: Specify Your Audience by Post

If you would only like your “real” friends to see pictures of your children, or read your thoughts on politics, specify it when posting by sharing only with Close Friends. In the Share Status box, the audience is indicated in the lower-right hand side. Drop down to change the audience. Facebook remembers your setting from post to post, so be prepared to change the audience as you switch topics.

You should probably only share your political beliefs with your close friends.

Smart Move: Set Your Professional Posts to Public

When sharing professional articles or interesting content that relates to your business, make sure you set the audience to “Public.” This not only allows all subscribers to access your post, it also creates a clean, public profile for you on Facebook. Any potential employers or business partners who search for you on social media will see a professional profile rather than a locked down page. Don’t hide your best content!

Cultivate a strong online professional presence
by sharing industry-related news and articles with the public.

Smart Move: Allow Subscribers

Facebook gives you the option to allow “Subscribers” to follow your posts. This feature allows people to subscribe to your public posts without friending you. This is a great way to spread your professional content to a wider audience.

You can allow subscribers under General Account Settings –> Subscribers

Tip: When someone adds you as a Friend, they’re automatically subscribed to your public posts. If you don’t respond to their friend request, they will still receive anything you share publicly.