One of My Facebook Secrets

Do you want to know one of my Facebook secrets that I only share in my Facebook training class? First you are going to have to read some background and inspiration for this blog post before I give you my secret. I know . . .I know …. I am so pushy! LOL!

I teach Facebook using the phone/Skype and remote connection software to teach my clients how to use and customize their Facebook accounts hands on. I also teach Facebook in a classroom environment. Facebook users from all skill levels take my class and they always learn something new; even long-time users. I have to admit I love, LOVE, love it every time and it does good for my ego!

Last week I was talking with my friend on the phone, Jane Doe (she will remain anonymous in this blog post)! She is quite social media savvy, on Facebook and Twitter both. We were discussing Facebook lists, fan pages, etc … I asked her this simple question:

“Have you customized your privacy settings on Facebook?”

Of course, her response was yes.

I followed up with “Have you gone into Applications & Websites and customized the settings to limit what information your Facebook friends can share about you?”

She responded yes, but I could tell she wasn’t quite sure of the question I was asking.

I walked her through checking her settings and we found that she hadn’t tweaked this area. According to her current settings, her Facebook friends were allowed to share everything about her with third party applications (i.e. games, websites, etc …)

She hadn’t even seen this area before, just as many times in many other conversations I have had, others haven’t either. Of course, we fixed her settings and she is nice and protected now!

Have I tortured you long enough to share the secret yet? Here are the instructions and screen shots to show you how to check your settings for this area and fix them.

• Log into your Facebook account
• Click on Account on the right hand side
• Click Privacy Settings

Click Edit Your Settings under where it says Applications and Websites. It’s on the bottom left hand side.

Click Edit Settings

I recommend deselecting all boxes, except your Website, Education and Work.

I figure if third party apps want to know my website and share it somewhere, more the power! I also welcome them to share the name of my business, since I am self employed.

Of course, click Save Changes! This is important!

I recommend you look through each of the areas on this page and customize your settings. It is important you understand what you are sharing with Facebook, but also with all social networking platforms I pay close attention and detail in all my training sessions what each item means and how to determine what you want to share.

Now that I have shared one of my Facebook training secrets with you, share with me! Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I really understand Facebook? Do I know the difference between a Status Update, Wall-to-Wall update and a private message? Do I feel vulnerable when I am online?
2. Do I know how to customize my status updates by targeting lists? When I share something personal about my family am I sharing it with everyone? What kind of risks am I exposing myself to? Also, what about your friends & family? What are you allowing others to know about your Facebook friends?
3. Do I have my photo album settings set so that I only share what I want and with whom I want?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, check out the details for my Facebook Coaching session.

Get the social media help you need TODAY …. Before you REGRET it in the FUTURE! You might not even realize you need it until we talk! Feel free to email me any questions.

Friends, I would ask one last thing: Please share will me if you feel comfortable, did you have this setting already adjusted properly? If so, did you find it on your own or did someone tell you to look for it? Do you have a Facebook secret you want to share? Comment away …..