Even though I have being using Facebook for a few years now, it wasn’t until recently that I had the light bulb moment of how to tackle a bothersome issue. My friend list has many different facets to it, including:
- personal friends
- colleagues in the web industry
- colleagues in the music industry
- colleagues who play trombone specifically
- random connections
My posts and comments on Facebook will sometimes be relevant to all of these groups, and at other times be very specific. Throw into the works the fact that my Facebook profile has relatively low privacy settings – I use it mainly for professional purposes and need people to be able to find it. (I am not arrogant enough to make a Page about myself to handle the professional traffic). This causes a few problems:
- Occasionally I may decide to post something that is not confidentially private, but I also don’t necessarily want it broadcast to the entire world.
- Many of my connections, especially my personal friends, are very conscious of their own privacy. I don’t want that to be compromised by my own Profile’s settings.
Now, the privacy settings that Facebook provide are pretty blunt. But I don’t personally think Facebook has done anything untoward here: we all have to take personal responsibility for what we allow to be shown online. If something we have posted is so private/incendiary that we panic about how Facebook is going to treat it, then we really need to consider whether it should be online in the first place.
Facebook is an extremely useful tool for keeping in touch with family and friends, and connecting with new people. And it is, after all, a FREE service that nobody gets forced to sign up to. We all need to take personal action to keep control of our personal data. If we don’t want to worry about that, then don’t post it online!
Now, getting back to my point.
I know some people in similar situations to me (mixing personal/business stuff) have tried to work around the problem by having two (or more) profiles: one for business and one for just family/friends. But as it turns out, this is against Facebook’s Terms and Conditions and anyone found doing so risks having all of their accounts suspended. Argh.
So a few weeks ago a feature that has been on Facebook for ages finally popped into my consciousness: Friend Lists!
- Account > Edit Friends > Create New List >Choose a Name > select your friends that you want to be in that list
In my case, all of my friends are still in the Everyone setting, but are all in at least 1 other list. This allows me to have posts and comments only appear to a particular group if necessary. You just select who you want the post to appear to in the Share settings, and away you go! (You can also select who you want it NOT to appear to for extra protection).
It takes a bit more thought on my part, but I see it having a number of benefits:
- Personal stuff has an element of protection
- My entire lists doesn’t get bombarded with irrelevant stuff.
- I’m following Facebook’s rules
Check out this page on Facebook for more info on how to use this feature.
Until next time,
Adam 