I received a message from a new “friend” on Facebook. Right after I accepted him as a friend, he sent me a message asking me why I don’t upload more pictures to my Facebook page.
Actually, I do. But only my real-life friends and family can see them. “Friends” who know me from my websites go into a special friend list I’ve created that only allows them to see my basic profile info. My fan page is for business and I keep my main profile for friends and family.
First of all, I don’t post a lot of things to my personal FB profile page. However when I do share a picture or video, I don’t necessarily want it to be so readily accessible to all my online followers.
Of course, this doesn’t guarantee info can’t be found, but I’m not posting anything that I wouldn’t be OK with if it happened to leak out. My philosophy is always, “If you don’t want it to be found, don’t post it!”
I wish Facebook would allow us to add a message next to our names/profile in their search results so we can redirect people to our business/fan pages. I know a lot of marketers who separate business and personal profiles on Facebook, so I’m sure many would find this useful.
I used to respond to the friend requests with a message directing them to my fan page, but that just became too time consuming. So I just accept them and file them into my “Limited Friend” list.
Update!! Did you know you can link your fan page to the header of your personal profile? So when your fans find you in FB search, they can see the link to your fan page.
Nothing is 100% Private Anymore
Privacy-controlled friend lists or not, I realize nothing is completely private online. Even if you don’t have a personal FaceBook account, another friend who uses FB with an “open profile” could tag your name in a picture they took and share your photo with anyone.
Nevertheless, I like having the two accounts because it does help you maintain some level of privacy. As your website following grows, you’ll encounter people who want to “friend” you just to pry into your personal life.
I could write a book about some of the e-mails I receive from overzealous fans who freely send me all (and I do mean ALL) their personal contact information or make some of the oddest requests that have nothing to do with my websites. Most people are harmless, but you can never be too careful these days.
What about you? Do you mix business with personal on Facebook? Do you create limited-access friend lists? What has your experience been like?
For now I have just one Facebook account and I use it almost exclusively for connecting with friends and family. Mostly people would not like to expose their real person in Business Purpose and stay anonymous.
I set up a private group for my close friends. For everybody else, I just use the news feed wall. Sometimes you don’t really get to know people until your facebook friends. Its then when they can post more random things that you would ever image.
Another trend is trying to get as many facebook friends as possible, as some sort of popularity measure, pointless… How many of these “friends” will stand by your side when you really need them?
It’s irritating how so many people is trying to use facebook to advertise or scam. I have not tried limiting access to this group of friends.
You are so right…
Thanx for this informative post..
It’s irritating how so many people is trying to use facebook to advertise or scam. From time to time I am getting friend requests from some strange sounding (and looking :)) people who I do not know at all and never heard of.
Another trend is trying to get as many facebook friends as possible, as some sort of popularity measure, pointless… How many of these “friends” will stand by your side when you really need them?
My personal facebook is private and I hope to keep it that way. I don’t even accept friend requests from people I haven’t met in real life, let alone someone I started chatting to on a forum or blog.
Because of this feature only and that is the privacy feature Google+ is gonna be so popular because in that we can restrict our all personal details to a certain member only and you don’t need to have two profiles on the same networking websites to separate your friends!!
It is really common sense to separate ‘real friends’ and family from people who consider themselves friends but are not truly ‘friends’. To ensure my personal stays personal, I have created a personal account and a business account. I do not cross them. Also, I do not accept anyone I have not met or cannot recall meeting in my personal account. However, linking my fan page to the header of my personal profile, as you have mentioned can be done, may be a great idea to channel more traffic to my business.
Thanks for your information.
“If we all treat each other like we treat ourselves – what a wonderful place earth would be.”
Yes i do separate from you as well . While i need some privacy for my personal .
The latest Google Plus allow you to do that which you can separate your friend list in different circles and post something that only able to show for chosen circles list.
This is what benefit compare from Google Plus to Facebook.
I have created lists seperately for my business mates and my llovely buddies..!!
that’s awesome 😀 i just changed mine and you are officially my hero 😀
I keep it all separated by just having my close community of friends have access to photos and videos.
not really, nowadays sometimes you can’t even separate where the real life and where is the “digital” life
I used to have separate accounts for my online persona and my real life friends, but I understood that to be a violation of the terms of service. Some have told me that it’s not, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.
I’m very picky about who I accept as a friend from my online circles. I currently only have 30 as friends. With the recent ability to sign in as your fan page, I’ll likely knock that list down by more than 50%.
I have not tried limiting access to this group of friends. It’s something I may need to look into for some of my old high school classmates though. As far as online friends go, I will stick to fan pages.
Lisa, I want you to be my real friend!
That great that facebook now allow you to set yourself as fan page or your personal page. Last time we need send private email with our personal account only and now you able to send your fan private message with your fan account if you only admin.
The problem you face you maybe get a FBML tab that to ask them link to your business fan page or use the about or edit info to write up ” join your business facebook fan page”.
Mostly people would not like to expose their real person in Business Purpose and stay anonymous.
I have two separate FB accounts – helps to make doing business so much easier. On my personal account, I used to make lists and put people here and there but it got a little out of control as I forgot about it and then I didn’t know where the requests were coming from to properly organize them. So, two accounts is definitely worth it if you are serious about your business.
Linda
You cannot believe anyone whether in online or offline.
I have a personal account and just a fan page for my site. Would you guys recommend to also making another facebook account for my site connections?
The reason why I ask is because I don’t get many “likes” on my fan page but I do get twitter followers.
I absolutely LOVED!!! the video your voice was very clear you got to the point and it wasn’t to lengthy. You really told us something beneficial it wasn’t alot of adlib. Thanks Lisa!!
I have just started on FB and currently have only a profile related to my blog – kind of fan page! I do believe that it is important to keep personal and business as separate to start with. Maybe after one has been able to develop a business relationship to a level where there is trust, one may “upgrade” the fan or business associate to personal friend level. But that can happen only over a period of time.
With this thought and based on what I have read here in the form of the article and comments, I am sure that I’ll have two profile on FaceBook.
I have just one FB account, with no limited friends list. But I do have a fan page, so I do a fair bit of jumping back and forth to keep friends on one separate from fans on the other.
Yes, it’s tome consuming, but for now it’s what I’ve got. The frustrating thing about FB is how often they change everything around. I haven’t bothered learning all the things I could do with it yet.
Delena
Wow.
I’m not a Facebook “person” and, I’m like you…
I have a Facebook page specifically for family and
REAL close friends. I don’t need a superficial list
of people I don’t know and will NEVER know in this
lifetime to make me feel good about myself.
But yea, I only have 3-4 pictures of myself up.
I have many, many more – but I keep them close
for again, friends and family.
This might creep you out Lisa (and no, I’m not BS’ing
you for shock value)…
but I have a friend who put up pictures of their
expired father on facebook – and worst, it wasn’t
just for “close friends and family” – it was for ALL
her hundreds of friends to see.
…and even IF it were just for her close family, it’s
not something you showcase on Facebook because
people DO hack into stuff like that.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now – I’ve seen crazyer
stuff, but that one is at the top of my “keep personal”
list.
good post … i try to not have my friends as my website’s fans haha! I created a fan page for my website (facebook) and it’s important to network with your readers or visitors.
You’re all gonna laff at me, but I decided long ago to just keep my facebook low-key and more “personal” – with just 82 “friends!” (I had facebook connect on my blog for awhile but removed it due to security concerns) I use LinkedIn for professional connections. (And of course twitter, where I have 500+ followers) Why are they following ME?
I haven’t really figured out what I want to do with Facebook and my site. I just use facebook for my close friends and relatives. I only have like 20 or so friends because I only use it to socialize with people I want to socialize with.
Hi Lisa,
I have created over 20 different facebook identies or pages just for different websites and have my usual personal facebook page, which I hardly use as I prefare a good chat down the local face to face with my real friends ha! 🙂
Hi Lisa,
I’ve developed a whole separate facebook page for my website. I’ve yet to acquire any fans, seeing as I’m just in the first stages of building my site.
However, I did go ahead and create a separate page because I do expect one day to have some fans and I wanted to have my business FB page already available.
I think this is a good idea, it’s not always good to mix business with pleasure.
Great post.
Ti Roberts
I keep my business and person Facebook information seperate. I created a page to use for the business so that everything is kept seperated, but I can still interact.
Well, this is how serious I take my personal facebook page: About a dozen people know my password and my only request is that all friend requests get accepted, events are “maybe”, and everything else is declined.
Most people would frown on that idea, but it gave me a great perspective on what I do and don’t want posted on my personal page. Basically, if you don’t want someone to see it, don’t post it. Therefore, in my mind, why not accept any friend request? If you have to add groups or limited profiles, chances are you’re posting too much information.
Plus, for me and my site, I think many people relate to me, which also makes my site more appealing to them. Therefore, blocking them, using a separate profile, or limited access sends the wrong message. Of course, that’s more case specific to my site, but it works for me.
One other thing worth mentioning, in my niche (sports, generally), people enjoy the comradery because each person is a sports fan, not because they have a name, or a face with that name. It’s kind of like if you go to a professional sporting event-you go with your best friend, but the guy on the other side of you is your new best friend, regardless of what his name is or if he has facebook.
Anyways, that’s just my opinion that I thought was worth sharing.
Though I agree with Lisa on the point that nothing is private anymore, however, you have to remember that Facebook like any other website is a huge opportunity to meet new people , expand your network. But then are sites like Linkd In that do offer same dimension without the intrusive nature of the process.
That is in totality a brilliant idea to maintain separate profiles for virtual and real friends .
But wouldn’t be great if one website offered all of this, Sigh!
Food For thought anyone??
business and pleasure . . . absolutely do not co mingle the two. i have a separate personal account, and multiple other business accounts.
I do the separate list thing too. There are a very few things I post that I only want family to see.
Hi Lisa,
I practice the same minimalist method on Facebook. I accept a few blogging friends that I’ve grown to trust – I didn’t know you could create a special list, so I might give that a try.
I believe in being cautious about the things I post, I think it’s important to keep even the things I post for family and friends clean and professional – you just never know who knows who and whose watching.
I have two separate accounts as well! There are a few online “friends” that have made it to my personal account but I have had contact with them for years. I prefer to keep everyone else on a strictly business level.
I just keep my friend on phone contact. Its safe.
lol – Tony that would be the ultimate solution. those who want to get in touch will find a way to do so! great comment man
I mix it all together. I’m a trashy humor writer, so, if I post something shocking, it’s okay. My friends would be a little shocked if I weren’t shocking.
On the other hand, I never post any boring family stuff. No pictures of the xmas tree (unless it goes flying through the picture window). No adorable pet pictures (unless they are being charged with felonies). Of course, my siblings hardly speak to me anymore. Works out kinda nice, actually.
I have a completely different account for business because I don’t want to bore my real friends by filling their news feeds with my ‘stuff’ they may not be interested in.
Using the privacy settings, you can choose not to be found on FB search by your personal account. This way, only your other account comes up on the search results and people are forced to contact you using that one.
You can also place some info redirecting people to ur biz page in any of the fields on your Info Page and make that field visible to everyone. This is for people who find your personal page through other means.
Have fun evading your stalkers! If you need a virtual bodyguard at anytime, I am available for hire … 🙂
For now I have just one Facebook account and I use it almost exclusively for connecting with friends and family. I am friends with some business contacts, but I only do those that don’t push their businesses too much.
I’ve noticed a tendency for some online business people to use personal accounts almost exclusively to promote their businesses; I don’t like that and will usually unfriend or hide suche people.
I agree that Facebook should be more supportive of enabling users to easily separate “inner circle” and “outer circle” friends. I know that doesn’t match the original Facebook vision, but I prefer to use Facebook to keep in touch with family and close friends.
Like Jordy (previous comment), I haven’t put in enough time to create a second Facebook page. It’s tough to prioritize.
Lisa,
I think your advice here is helpful. I can just imagine the emails you get. What you say online never entirely disappears, and can really come back to bite you. For those of us who don’t know all the techie stuff, we think that after awhile it disappears. I am no techie by any means, but I have close friends who are. I have been warned by them that if someone wants to find it, they can. Thanks for the practical advice for all of us to follow. One last thing, make sure you have set your security settings to “https” instead of the default “http” You probably all know that , but since I didn’t, maybe that will help somebody else too.
To avoid that problem I made a separate FB account for just my blog. I have gotten over 2400 friend requests. I don’t have the time to go through each individually. The downside to that is that I have more friends than fans, but the upside is that I can directly send links to my ‘friends’ to follow my blog on networked blogs. That has given me over 400 blog followers which has lead to an increase in traffic for me.
I haven’t taken the time to really leverage all of the tools available on FB.
I’m guessing that they have an educational section where I can learn how to make fan pages and set things like limited friends.
Right now I only have my real friends added to my account.
There are so many things to learn about Internet marketing that I had to prioritize what I was doing.
Facebook fell lower on my list of things to master right now.
I keep it all separated by just having my close community of friends have access to photos and videos..this keep the friendship going and the marketing going at the same time..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
For sure, I have 2 Facebook accounts one for business and one for family and friends…. I am also fussy about who goes in the friends section, I only have a small (compared to some) friends list of about 40.
I was once told “If your not prepared to shout it out in the mall, don’t put it on facebook”, I always have that in mind when posting…. anywhere.
I get daily requests from readers of my sites to become “friends” on Facebook. I take it as a good thing as it means I appear approachable though I do have a policy that unless I know them in real life or spoken with the person for an extended amount of time online I just ignore their request. I’ve almost never had an angry email demanding to know why I didn’t accept their request.
As an alternative I offer a fan page and always direct people to my twitter and youtube pages where I can reply to messages and still interact with them so they don’t feel like I’m some kind of cyber-snob and still very much interested in communicating with my readers.
i have one business facebook account for 2 of my sites. it is as good as my twitter account which isnt a good comparison. to this day, i dont see any benefit if you are selling a product. maybe if you give info like lisa but selling is 0 sales…just a bunch of people trying to see how many friends they can have.
I have one Facebook profile for personal use, and another for my blog. I try not to mix profiles, so I usually keep them separate. I even have separate groups in my personal profile to limit who can see what, including pictures and videos.
My blog profile has nothing personal on it, and I only have it for my fan page.
Managing the information in your online identity is important, and if you don’t want someone to know something about you, then don’t share it online. As you said, nothing is 100% private.