Most people use Facebook for staying in touch with friends or sharing pictures from vacations or other events. Rarely, do you ever talk about your professional life on Facebook. In the past, I have done most of my online professional networking on LinkedIn. However, I have recently launched a fan page for McDermott Financial Solutions on Facebook. Become a fan!
After all, LinkedIn has about 44 million users compared to 250 million on Facebook. Clearly, not all Facebook users are focused on business. But, business owners should not pass up the opportunity to use Facebook for networking. If you would like to use Facebook for business, start with your friend list. You may want to create a new friends list for professional friends in addition to your personal friends.
Once you’ve done that, you can go to the settings link in the upper right hand corner and restrict access to various parts of your profile. For example, you may want to share your pictures with your personal friends but not professional ones
You may want to expand your professional network by participating in Facebook Groups. Go to the search box, click on Groups and type in a key word. You can also search the Internet for popular Facebook Groups.
Once you’ve located a professional group, you may want to look for:
-recent news, member listings, discussion boards and wall postings
If you join a group, you may want to post an introduction and explain what you’re looking for, networking, employment etc. You may want to comment on discussion boards or make wall postings. You can also post a question for discussion also. Once you’ve mastered the basics, networking on Facebook will be similar to networking in real life.
While Facebook was originally created as a social network and operates as one for most people, there are some obvious applications for professional networking that are just too good to pass up.
I invite you to post a comment or share your experiences on this topic.
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