Leverage your personal Facebook without compromising your privacy Panoptic Foundations - Tanya Jones-Thibodeau
I'm a member of many Facebook Groups and over time I have come to learn that some of these Groups are extremely useful. I learn many new things, some worth implementing in my own businesses, some interesting, some are simply entertaining. I also meet a lot of interesting and wonderful people, some of whom continue to become quite good acquaintances, even friends in some cases, and others become clients of mine or I a client of theirs. But something I encounter again, and again, and again, are people who give no single hint or indication of who they are or what they do through their personal profiles. And frankly, it's frustrating. I've heard many others comment on this observation too. Many entrepreneurs and authorpreneurs using Facebook, don't want to mix their business and personal activities. And that's totally fine. Facebook gives us several tools for securing the privacy of our personal lives and I encourage you to explore those settings and get things setup in whatever way you're most comfortable with. However, there are some aspects of Facebook that forces us to have some cross-over between our personal and business activity. For example, a Facebook "Page" can't join a Facebook "Group", which means you have to use your personal account, even if it's for business purposes. So this then makes your personal profile a target for others who end up being curious about you and what you do.
Now some people don't mind mixing business and personal at all, but then when a potential business prospect goes to check you out they're wading through a ton of personal stuff to find the business related nuggets - which is a chore most people won't waste time with. Fortunately, by being intentional about your Facebook presence, you can take control of what information people are getting about you AND make it easy for them to get the information that they want and that you want them to get. In this ebook I'm going to cover four tactics that will help you to leverage your personal profile without, and without turning off potential connections. This allows you to keep your personal presence and your business presence separate, while still building credibility and guiding prospects in the right direction. The four tactics are: 1. Your Facebook mini-intro 2. Your Business Page Link(s) 3. Your feature photos 4. Using Friend Lists
So let's jump in and to get started, I want you to answer the question: "What do you do?" This is a question that many of us get asked in various settings and most often we're not prepared with an answer. So in a general sense, it really is good business practice to have a memorized and well rehearsed answer to this question that we can draw on at any time. But that aside, for the purpose of this ebook, there's another excellent reason to have a quick, snappy and intriguing mini-intro. Which is so that we can utilize the tiny little space that Facebook gives us on our personal profile to introduce ourselves. And it really does need to be quick and snappy, because they only give us 101 characters. But the beauty of creating this intro is that if anyone is researching us professionally then chances are, the question at the front of their mind is "What do you do?" By acknowledging the fact that this is what people most want to know, and then utilizing the Facebook intro space, you're being intentional about making sure that they can easily find the answer. You're being intentional about your online presence, the information you're providing to the public, and how easy you're making it for people to learn about what you do.
Now the task of actually completing this piece is incredibly easy. 1. You login to Facebook and go to your personal profile. 2. Once there you look for the box that says "intro". Facebook is constantly rolling out changes, so depending on when you're reviewing this ebook it is possible that the locations of these items might be different. But just cast your eyes around and so long as you're definitely on your personal profile timeline you should find things. In this box, you're given the opportunity to add some additional text. If you've never done anything with this space there may be a prompter telling you to use info from your "about" details. Or you may see a plus sign that says "Describe who you are". When you click on the blue text an edit box will appear. Simply type in your intro, hit save and you're done. You can also go back and change this text any time you want. Simply hover over your Intro wording and you'll see a pencil appear to the right of it. Click the pencil and bam, you're back in the edit box.
Just as an extra note, before you hit save you may have the option to turn on the toggle switch to also post your new intro to your newsfeed, which will then show your new intro to your Facebook friends as well. This is completely optional and entirely up to you. Updating your intro like this is a super quick and easy tactic as far as the "tech" side of it goes, but it's incredibly beneficial when people are trying to determine if they want to make a connection with you. In providing this information you're also establishing trust and credibility with anyone who is seeking to learn more about you. And if you're spending any amount of time in Facebook Groups (which you should be), I can guarantee that other members are clicking on your name to see who you really are. Truthfully, the most difficult part of this task will be coming up with your mini-intro in 101 characters.
How to come up with your mini-intro So with that in mind, let's take a minute to dive in a bit deeper on how to create this mini-intro. The point of a great intro is to create intrigue and inspire conversation. It's not about impressing them. The greatest power behind a terrific intro lies within including your "why" in the sentence. Some examples, as provided by Staff Link, include: Superman: I conquer super villains and make the world a safer place. Social Media Expert: I build Facebook pages to help companies engage with their customers. App Developer: I write mobile apps that solve every-day problems. I m working on one right now that helps people get to sleep. Web Developer: I help people set up online stores that get lots of traffic and sell stuff.
Some additional insights from Seth Godin: What s your job? Not your job title, but your job. What do you do when you re doing your work? What s difficult and important about what you do, what change do you make, what do you do that s hard to live without and worth paying for? I change the people who stop at my desk, from visitors to guests. I give my boss confidence. I close sales. If your only job is showing up, time to raise the stakes. Creating an intriguing intro that achieves all that you hope it to achieve isn't an easy task for most. Give yourself the time to research different ideas and possibilities. Including listening to TEDxTalks: How to know your life purpose in 5 minutes Adam Leipzig youtu.be/vvsxo9brk7m
This talk asks us to answer five questions: 1. Who are you? 2. What do you do? 3. Who do you do it for? 4. What do those people want or need? 5. How do they change as a result? Your words won't be carved in stone and you're free to change, tweak and update it at any time. But you need to start somewhere. Start with the answers to the above questions and then shape your intro around the answer to the last question. As you may have noticed the "tech" component of this tactic really is very simple. As we progress, we're confident that, when broken down, you'll find every aspect of the technical side to building your online presence just as simple and that the concept of "being intentional" in your thoughts, actions and plans will bring the whole thing together for you with ease.
Linking Up Next, I'm going to teach you how to get your actual Facebook Business Page linked in the box immediately below your mini-intro. If you don't currently have a business page, that's fine, it's something you can come back to later. Remember, the point behind learning and implementing these tactics is two-fold. First, it's about becoming intentional in our choice of words and actions when it comes to the image we present online. Second, it's about reaching an understanding that the tech side of developing an online presence doesn't need to be complicated or scary. You've got this! And I'm here to help whenever you have questions. So again, from your Facebook Personal Profile Timeline, take a look at the space just under the Intro that we added in the last section - here you're able to include some specific information about yourself.
If you've never done this before you should see some blue text that says "Add info about you" - simply click this text to get started and you can start adding information. If you've already got some stuff showing here then when you hover over the area you'll again see a pencil appear to the right that you can then click. A pop-up window will then show up. You might already have some items showing here and you can just check off boxes that will then display publicly on your personal profile, regardless of the rest of your privacy settings. If the information you want to display is missing or wrong, you can add items or edit existing ones from this window by clicking the blue "add" text for each specific section. The next screen will have your edit options. Now, in this pop up window you have the option to also include places where you've worked. If you filled out any of this information in your "about" section previously then you may have options here that you can just check off like I have. When you hit save, these items will then show up below your intro. But if you don't have any options to choose from, or if perhaps the information you previously filled out is wrong or doesn't link to your own actual business page, then you'll need to add it.
So once you're in the above window, under the work section click the blue text that says "Add a workplace". This will take you to your "About" section.
Again, click on the blue text here at the top that says "Add a workplace". This will give you a small form to fill out.
Start by typing the name of your Page in the company field. In some cases you'll need to type a fair bit or even all of the page name to get it to pull up in the drop down choices. When your page shows up, simply click on it. However, in some cases even typing the full and exact name of your page won't pull it up in the box. When this happens, Facebook gives you the option to create the entry you've typed - you don't want to do that. Now you might be tempted to try other options such as entrepreneur or writer, but again please don't do this as it serves no purpose to connecting with potential followers. Instead, open a separate tab in your browser and physically go to your Facebook Business Page. Then in the top address bar, highlight and copy the URL for your Facebook Page.
Go back to your profile browser tab and paste the URL into the company field. You'll then find your proper page shows up and you can select it. This will then make it the correct link on your profile. You can then fill out the remaining fields as appropriate, indicate that it's current and even add a start date if you want. Then click save.
But there's still one more step. Go back to your timeline, and click the pencil to edit the info box once more. Here you'll find your newly created workplace. Check off the box next to it and then click save - this is the step that will make it public and add it to the area under your Intro for when people first come to your Profile. After you click save, you'll now see your newly added (or edited) link in the space below your intro. If you have any workplaces that you want to delete, you can. Simply edit the info box, click "Add a workplace" and then when you hover over the one you want to delete you'll see an option menu appear on the right. Click it, and click delete. In the window that opens, select the option that says "Remove " and click save.
Pretty simple right? I told you, you've got this! So just to recap the steps Edit the box to add additional info Choose "add a workplace" twice Type your page name or paste your page URL in the company field Select your page, fill out the rest of the form & save Go back to your timeline and edit the info box Check off the box for your new workplace & save This task really should only take a couple of minutes. Very quick and easy once you know the steps to take. And I'm really not joking when I say that all of your tech related tasks can be broken down to be this simple.
Next up is Feature Photos Just below the area where we added the link to your Facebook Page, you'll see in the image below that I have 5 specific photos on display. These are photos that you can specifically select for displaying in this area and you can choose up to five, but you don't have to pick as many as five. When choosing images to display here, I recommend picking ones that best represent the image you want to portray to the public - more so than for the sake of your friends. You can also get creative and actually make images, using something like Canva, that perhaps includes some text for specific messages if you want. (We offer a free course for beginners on how to use Canva if you're interested, more information will be at the end of this ebook.) You could also consider adding a version of your Page cover photo or the profile photo to this set of five, which would help to connect the images with your Page. Though you may want to edit it to be more square than what displays in the cover photo section.
Now if you haven't specified any featured photos before, then on your profile you might see an empty box with the blue text that says "Add Featured Photos". In order to set your featured photos you simply click the blue text that you see and then choose the photos you want to display. When you already have feature photos in place that you want to change, you'll see a pencil appear so that you can simply edit the images you've selected. Click the X on the ones you want to remove and then click the add button to choose new ones.
Once again, that's it! Hopefully you're starting to see the pattern of how the "tech" side of things can be broken down into very small and simple steps that you can complete with ease. By far the more challenging aspects of these tasks are in deciding on the wording and materials to use. But for many entrepreneurs and authorpreneurs, you already have the materials ready because you're using them in other areas of your business. If you don't have ready to use materials then you have the choice of creating them yourself, or outsourcing the job to a freelancer. These options are outside of the scope of this ebook, but they are topics that we fully cover in our membership and course materials. But as mentioned before, the DIY tool that we recommend for creating your own images is Canva. We do also offer a free course for beginners on how to use Canva and we'll include the details at the end of this ebook.
Using Friend Lists So one of the most common things I hear is that people prefer to keep their business and personal presence completely separate. And fair enough, I get that. But unless you're part of the underground Mafia or a paid hitman, I'm going to assume that it's not your friends and family that you're trying to hide your business from. For most people, it's that they don't want strangers poking around in their personal lives - which makes complete sense. Fortunately, Facebook does provide us with a great deal of privacy settings that will allow us to keep all of our personal information and posts hidden from the prying eyes of the public. So if you go through the process of updating your privacy settings, you can still follow the previous three steps in order to give prospects the information they're looking for, without any "non-friends" being able to see anything else, and you probably wouldn't even need to worry about this additional tactic. But for those of us who are a little bit more open about accepting Friend requests and extending more cross-over between our personal and business presence, there is an extremely cool feature that was a total game-changer for me. It's called "Friend Lists" and it's a well hidden gem of Facebook that I rarely find people using.
Once you have this feature setup, you use it to specify the specific group of "friends" (ie: one of your lists) that you want to be able to see any given post. When you apply this post privacy option, then only the people within the particular list you select will be able to see your post. This means that not only can you prevent business "friends" from seeing your personal posts, but you can also save your personal friends and family from seeing some (or all) of the business related posts you may decide to publish. Man do I ever love this feature. You can even get really ambitious if you want and split up pockets of personal friends and family for specific personal posts. And there are no limits to the number of lists that you can create. So for this one, you want to be on the Home screen (which is the first page you go to when you first login). If you're not already there, you can get back to this screen by clicking the "Home" link at the top next to your name. In the left sidebar, find the Explore section and click on "Friend Lists" - if it isn't visible, click the "See More link" at the bottom to expand the list.
In this section you can create lists of specific people. You click on the button at the top called "Create List" give your list a name and then start typing the names of the people you want to add and select them to add them. Fortunately you don't have to remember every single name on your friend list, you can also create a blank list and then when you click on the button to add friends you'll get a window showing all your friends. Simply click on the photos of the ones you want to add to this list and click finish. Refresh the page and you will then see only the posts by the people on this list.
You can also edit each list by clicking on the button called Manage List and then click on edit list. It will first show you who is on this list and you can remove them by clicking on the X or the check mark. You can then use the drop down, select friends and then go through your friends to add more to the list. You can also select Pages to add to a list. When you click on this option, if you get a "content is no longer available" message, just click close. Then in the search box start typing the name of a page and click it to select it. Again refresh the page to see your changes, though sometimes it can take a while for the changes to take effect. Now this is a very handy way of browsing Facebook, because you can set up specific lists of people and pages that you want to follow for different reasons. It's far more effective than relying on FB to decide what you should and shouldn't be seeing and you will miss far less of the updates that you actually want to see.
But that's just a side bonus of this feature. The real power comes with your privacy options per post. So now go to your profile and compose your post. Then click on the privacy button (it might be showing public or friends). Then click on more options. First off you have the choice to select a particular list and FB will then only serve the post to the people on that list.
However, you also have a "custom" option, and when you click this link you're given further options to include additional people or lists AND to also exclude specific people or lists.
So you might want to share the post with everyone EXCEPT a certain list. Or you might want to share it with a certain list EXCEPT one or two people who are on that list. This gives you incredible power and control over the messages you post on your personal profile, while still enabling you to leverage some of the connections you have on your friends list. So how's that for a pretty nifty trick? I hope you're as excited about this feature as I was when I first came across it. This feature in particular ties in well with "being intentional*", because by making the effort to create these lists and use them responsibly you are showing an incredible level of consideration for your family, friends and acquaintances. Use of these lists will also ensure that you don't excessively over post certain types of messages to certain groups of people. With a bit of thought I'm sure you can come up with many different ways to utilize lists like this and how to put them to best use for you. *We have an article available on our blog in regards to "being intentional" that you may be interested in reading: http://panopticnews.com/foundations/being-intentional/
BONUS: What should I post? Now this is a topic that I could go really deep with as there are many different areas to explore. But for now, let's just touch on a few of the key elements of on what type of stuff you should and shouldn't be posting. To start with, the number one thing that you should avoid posting on your personal account, is anything that is overly promotional. Things that are asking people to buy something. If you have something exceptionally special in this regard, then it's ok to make an exception occasionally, but certainly with no level of regularity. The other thing to avoid is negativity or guilt trips. Now, that may seem obvious, but we've all experienced those moments of frustration when we feel like people just don't get it or that they're not supportive. And sometimes we impulsively act, or lash out, on these feelings. We definitely all need to vent from time to time, but public social media is simply not the place to do it, unless perhaps that angle is your entire persona and the image you are intentionally putting out to the public. In which case, go for it. But for the rest of us, don't succumb to those moments and make sure that everything you do post completely aligns with your beliefs. So nothing promotional and nothing negative. Then what else is there?! Haha.
Ideally, you want to post things that are genuinely interesting, while still being relevant to your brand. And things that have value for the person reading or watching. Value comes in many forms. It can be entertaining, it can be heartwarming, inspirational, helpful or educational. By focusing on these types of messages, whether they're shared from other people or your own original content, you will naturally ensure that you're not annoying your friends and family for two reasons. 1) they'll be posts that people actually want to see and 2) they're harder to find and create so you won't be over doing it. I know this is a very challenging area for most people, so here are a few more specific examples. It's important that you think outside the box for these content ideas. Sometimes the greatest content ideas aren't at all what you might have expected them to be. It also doesn't hurt to research your competition a bit to see what they're posting and which posts are getting them the most engagement. For anyone in business, the number one thing that is most important is that you KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. This is something you're going to hear me say a lot, and if you're following anyone else online in the business sector, they'll be saying it too. It is the most overlooked aspect of all businesses.
Making sure that you truly know your ideal customer is difficult for most people. It's a lot of work, and research, and it's hard to block out all the surrounding people who would also make good customers - but their not the perfect, most ideally aligned customer. But if you learn nothing else from me, or anyone else that you're following - learn how incredibly important this is. It will make or break your business. This applies to EVERYONE - there are no exceptions. You don't have to get it perfect the first time... but paint that picture. As you start to engage you will quickly see what holes there are or what pieces you missed and then you can start adjusting and refining. But to get back to the topic at hand, let's assume that you have an ideal customer defined. If you're an author of fiction, try to find topics that are both directly and indirectly connected to your book(s). They need to be topics that you personally have a genuine interest in and that your readers care about. For example, I write YA/Fantasy with magic, romance, powers and elves... so these are the topics my weekly articles address. Things like immortality and what it would be like if I were actually immortal. Or other topics like teleportation, telepathy, element manipulation... and I always include a personal connection to myself and only sometimes to my book(s). Never turn the article into a sales pitch. Non-fiction writers will typically find this exercise the easiest of most, because you're usually teaching something. So your posts would be snippets of what you teach. Extractions that provide value without giving everything away.
Generally speaking, small businesses will likely struggle the most with this exercise, but you've got more to draw on than you realize and you do NOT need to be a "writer" to do it. Some of the topics you can pursue are "how-to" pieces relevant to a product or service that you sell. But you don't say "come buy what you need from me" - instead you give them value and then invite them to contact you if they have any questions or would like some help. You can also use your own customers questions as a source for topics - meaning your posts are a Q&A "A customer asked me this and here's the answer" type of thing. Or maybe there are some critical components that would make your life and business so much easier if your customers knew; if they were educated about it. So educate them. And as for the "writing" part... literally write as you speak and ask someone you trust to proof read for you. It doesn't need to be elaborate, it needs to provide value. Everyone should also make sure that they work in some non-business related posts. Lighten things up. Have a bit of fun. Make people smile. It goes much farther than you might think. But as with everything, keep it in moderation and remember this is public. Make sure that whatever you're posting is in line with your business/brand image. As I mentioned, this is a deep subject, and I cover it in much greater detail in our membership and course materials, but the information I've given you in this ebook provides a solid start point to work from.
So in the ebook we've covered 1. how to add a custom intro to your personal profile, 2. how to create links to your business Pages, 3. how to setup featured photos, 4. how to manage and control the types of posts you put on your personal profile and who can see them, and 5. what types of things you should (and shouldn't) be posting. These tactics will ensure that anyone who clicks on your name will be able to easily determine what you do and how to get more information - all without being intrusive to our family and friends. On a parting note, I wanted to share with you how upset I get when I see good people getting misled when it comes to technology. You are well educated and knowledgable within your own area of expertise, and the fact that technology is perhaps a new and unknown realm for you doesn't change that. The odds are very slim that I could step into your domain and pick it up like an expert, but does that mean that you'd take advantage of me because of it? Yet I feel like that is what so many tech-industry experts are doing to entrepreneurs and authorpreneurs. Our world may be changing around us. But technology is not magical. It's not complicated. And it's not difficult.
With the right steps, guidance and patience, anyone is capable of doing technology. The steps and guidance are what I promise to provide. And I'll also bring my patience to the table if you will too! If you haven't done so already, I'd like to invite you to join our Facebook Group: Getting Going Online: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1772884026318155/ Also, as mentioned previously, we offer a free course for beginners on how to use Canva, which is a web-based design application that will have you making professional quality images in no time. You can access the course at: http://members.panopticfoundations.com If you'd like to read more, we also have several articles available on our blog at: http://panopticfoundations.com I hope you've found the information here to be useful. You're welcome to share this information with anyone you feel could benefit from it. I'd also love to hear from you - any comments or questions that you have are more than welcome. You can reply to the email that sent you this ebook, or reach out via Facebook. I'd like to leave you with one last parting question, and that is "what are the areas of technology that you struggle with most?" Please let me know.