As businesses began to enter social networking sites to market their goods and services, it did not make sense for them to create Profiles like a person would. Instead, they did the next best thing and created Groups around their brands.

Groups were not meant to promote brands, however. They were meant to build communities and interaction around a given topic.

To rectify this, Facebook created Pages in 2009. Pages are like Profiles. Pages are for businesses like Profiles are for People. Instead of friending a Page, you Like it.

The functionality of Pages is more conducive to marketing and public relations efforts that brands employ to drive interest in their offerings.

By Liking a business’s Page, you access special offers directed at their Likers only. You are included on discussions and announcements that bypass the regular world. Many companies continue to discover how social networking sites like Facebook increase the reach of their brands with little to no cost beyond a dedicated staffer to conduct social media efforts.

Have a brand you love? Search for it, and Like their page. Whether it’s a consumer good, a community organization or your favorite coffee shop, by Liking their Page you become a part of the inner circle where you can participate in what the brand is.

As you find Pages you want to Like, don’t forget to suggest the Page to people in your network who you think would Like it also.

Viral Power

Remember that a key power underlying social networking and social media is its ability to spread virally. That is, your actions do not happen in a vacuum (unless you really nail down your privacy settings). What you say and do is shared back out to your network as a way to drive similar behavior in others. This herd mentality is a natural response we have to want to belong. Social networking capitalizes on this to drive its growth.

This is why I remind users to always think about their actions thoughtfully, and not act impulsively.

We do not have to censor our every action. We reserve the right to behave and think as we choose. We just have to remember that now every one else knows about it, so it pays to think ahead.

Apps, Games, Polls and More

One big draw on social networking sites is the applications, games and other add-ins you can add to your profile.

These are entertaining ways to explore the site and connect with others. However, not everyone is interested in giving you a sheep to complete your farm (search for FarmVille, with over 78 million daily users).

If casual gaming is your thing, then dive in. The myriad of games will keep you on the site for hours at a time if you like.

As mentioned before, use good judgment when including others in your game play. Speaking personally, I find these very annoying and not a request I would impose on anyone.

If you notice your Wall becoming clogged by game updates from people in your network, move your mouse over the user’s name in your Wall. The button labeled “Hide” will appear to the right of their name. This lets you hide all updates by this person from your Wall. In the case of games, it selectively removes only updates generated by games on the person’s Wall.

This is a gracious way to turn off the annoyance of game updates but retain the person in your network, and to see their updates – not their games’ updates.

Adding Games

To explore the casual games available on Facebook, click the Games link below your photo on the left-hand side.

This opens a directory of all games. The ones you subscribe to are listed first, followed by the ones your friends most recently used.

Below that you can see which of your friends are playing which games.

To add the game to your profile, click on its title. Facebook will request that you allow permission for the game to access your Profile (this is how it updates your Wall). From there you are taken to the game’s page and can learn how to play it, and start playing.

Adding Applications

Similar to games, Applications add specific functionalities to Facebook.

For example, you can add a birthdays application to round up all the birthdays of everyone in your network. You will see reminders in your Profile page, making it easy to send (real or electronic) birthday cards. Birthdays are easy to forget so I love this feature.

Chat in Real-Time

The Chat feature in Facebook is very similar to any other instant messaging system you may have used.

The Chat feature is located in the bottom right of the screen. The number next to it is how many people in your network are logged in to Facebook at a given moment.

Click on the Chat button and a list of these online users is loaded.

If you sorted your friends into Lists, they will be organized by Lists here, too.

To start chatting a person, click on their name and you’re done. Note that the ones with a green dot to the right of their name are the ones actively using the site. Those with a gray crescent icon are idle.

Unlike full-fledged instant messaging systems, there is no file sharing, screen sharing, video webcam or audio functionality with Facebook’s Chat feature.

More Than Just Friends

Facebook offers a constant stream of new tools, applications and features to keep the site fun, fresh, and engaging. Keep trying out the ones that interest you for a little variety, and find something different to share.

Want to Join the Game?
Looking for tips on the best Pages, popular games or apps? Just want to ask a question about this? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Etiquette Matters

Although social media is famous for having somewhat loose standards of formality, propriety does hold a central place in any society, like it or not. Every social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) lays claim to its own particular cultural rules and mores. Be sure that you understand the customs and expectations of each platform before you make a gaffe, lest you cause tongues to wag, or worse, offend society.

Conversation Matters

The most prized currency in any refined society is the witty, charming conversation of its habitués. Your conversation may be clever and amusing, but do stop short of being overly self-promotional. It is a delicate balance, to be sure, but eminently achievable by the accomplished practitioner. How? Strive to focus on other people, be courteous, be helpful, be modest, be kind. Avoid gossip and vulgarity at all costs.

Connections Matter

No, you needn’t be the cousin of every A-list blogger or member of the Twitterati. Rather, you should strive to cultivate a true circle of friends who share your interests, whose trials and triumphs you can share, and with whose problems you can empathize. Try to make connections between people who should meet, but have not yet; be a matchmaker where one person’s needs and desires meet another person’s strengths and qualities. Create networks of friends who are sincerely glad to know each other, and give them frequent opportunities to connect and help each other.

Love Conquers All

Share your passion, and those who share your passion too will find you and follow you. Speak from your heart, do not endeavor to deceive, and all shall be well.

Which Fork Do You Use for Salad and Which for Entree?

Jane would tell you but she’s busy preparing for guests. Have an etiquette question or a pet peeve to share? Post your missive in the Comments section for a response.

Facebook originally provided Groups for likeminded people to create on their own for a given topic. These persist in over 100,000 member-created Groups across Facebook. Imagine a topic, and there’s likely a Facebook Group for it.

Groups are great ways to organize people around social, cultural and political issues whether in your neighborhood, city or across the country.

As Groups were discussed in the unit on LinkedIn, they serve a parallel purpose on Facebook.

Before you create a Group, take a few minutes to search for what interests you. Most Group owners have open membership policies so to become a member just click “Join Group” on the Group’s profile.

That you just joined the Group will also be posted to your Wall.

If you create a Group, it will be tied to your Profile. Groups cannot exist without being tied to a user’s Profile. This enables you to invite your friends to join the Group, too. It is also a means to prevent spammers from setting up shop.

Join Facebook Groups

To find Groups that interest you, use the Search feature on Facebook. You can then review the search results to pick which ones are right for you. You may have friends in those Groups already.

Don’t forget to suggest the Group to your friends who would be interested.

Events on Facebook Groups

Groups serve as a terrific hub of information for hosting live or virtual events.

Rather than sending out an email to dozens or more of people inviting them to attend, posting the event to a Group enables you post the information once. Members receive invites in their Facebook Messages feature, can RSVP, or decline from there.

You will be able to include all the traditional who, what, when, where, and why details, too. Strong integration of calendaring tools enable users to easily add events to their Outlook, Google Calendar or other calendar tool.

As people respond to attend, the headcount clicks upward one by one. When your event date arrives, you will have a very close idea of how many to expect.

Another good practice is to send out a reminder invite about a week before the invite. This reminder usually bumps your attendance up a few percentage points, and only contacts those who did not already confirm their attendance.

Which Group Do You Belong To?

What’s the low down on certain Groups? Want to create a Group? What’s your favorite Group? Let’s talk about it! Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Using social media in your personal life is a common practice for millions every day. How do you step into using social media for your business when you work for yourself?

Architecture firms operate in a very established field with rigid processes and procedures to ensure safety regulations are met and that structural quality is high. While their output is of extreme importance, the use of innovative marketing at architectural practices trails that of many other industries.

Pb Elemental in Seattle, however, has embraced social media in a fresh way to promote the firm’s projects, attract followers, and generate business.

“About two years ago, our receptionist recommended we put up a Facebook Page,” says co-founder Chris Pardo. “I got on Twitter at the same time. We do it to share our work without being in people’s faces.”

No Blogging, Just Building

While many businesses extol blogging, Pb Elemental prefers not to blog due to time constraints. However, many architecture blogs around the world republish and link to Pb Elemental’s Facebook Page on their blogs. From these re-postings, the firm receives inquiries from people who would otherwise never know about them. Pardo estimates that about 10% of these inquiries turn into revenue-earning projects in different locations around the United States. Pb Elemental does not practice outside the US at this time.

The firm’s fan base rapidly grew on Facebook, particularly among people who were looking to build a home. As of March, 2010, Pb Elemental had about 1,050 fans and Pardo himself had about 1,400 friends – mostly earned from the fan base.

Pardo also began to friend people who became Fans of the Pb Elemental Page on Facebook. He did this to reveal the person behind the firm, and reduce the appearance of being yet another faceless company.

He found that this gave an opportunity to show off more of the behind-the-scenes work they did, and clients felt that the firm was more approachable, trustworthy, and related to the firm as a connection.

“We receive about five to ten emails a week from people out of the blue asking us to design a house for them or asking how to buy the plans for the homes we’ve built,” Pardo explained.

Pardo described social media as a branding tool that provides a constant reminder to their audience, whereas traditional advertising provides one shot and then it is gone. That is why the firm conducts no advertising. Pardo comments that integrating blogs into Facebook works well if you have the time to blog.

Instead, they make social media a part of their everyday efforts and incorporate it into everything they do. His goal on Twitter is four tweets per day.

Facebook for Social Marketing

Pb Elemental uses social media to sustain interest and get people hooked on what they do. Pardo now tries to include more of the process behind how a final design is delivered instead of just showing photos of the finished project. This educates the potential buyer on the process of design.

Using social media also condenses the timeline, so he can post a complete sequence of photos from start to finish – a more engaging experience for his “friends.” He also provides multiple links back to Pb Elemental’s web site from the teaser content on Facebook.

Their latest project is a 10’ wide prefab house in partnership with Method Homes. The plan is to do time lapse photography while it is assembled over two days and publish this as the firm’s first video.

The interaction obtained from user comments is a key value that Pb Elemental sees in its social media efforts. Negative comments will remain but the troubling ones are deleted.

As for Twitter, Pardo began to see the light when his fiancé opened the gourmet hot dog shop Po’ Dogs. She used Twitter to communicate specials, discount codes, and events at the restaurant to attract customers. While Pardo recognized the value she gained from Twitter, he still works on how derive the best value for an architecture practice though they won a project in Houston via a tweet. They have about 450 followers on Twitter now.

About Pb Elemental

Chris Pardo is a founding partner of the architecture firm Pb Elemental. He co-founded the firm in 2004 with Dave Biddle. The firm was an outcome of their university thesis project: a residential home built for $125 per square foot. In 2005, their bank began referring them to builders who needed affordable construction methods. The firm has designed 475 projects as of March, 2010, and 340 of those have been built.

Since then, Pb Elemental has also won four awards:

• 2007 AIA Award (Commendation) for Queen Anne House
• 2008 Design Achievement Award
• 2009 Top 25 Innovators
• Chris Pardo: Top 20 Under 40 Architects

Construct a Facebook Strategy for You
Want to know more about how to use Facebook for your business? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

In the world of Facebook, your Wall is how you build and connect with others. To call it a billboard is a more accurate definition.

Your Wall is what you see when you log in to Facebook. It publishes the Status Updates and activities of people in your network in reverse chronological order.

For every Status Update you post about yourself, there will be a corresponding entry in the timeline on the Wall’s of everyone you friend on Facebook.

When you consider the size of your network, the amount of updates posted to your Wall can quickly become overwhelming. There are tools to manage how much you do or do not see – we’ll touch on those later. Nonetheless, as you continue to grow and cultivate your network, this is why you will want to consider each new addition before impulsively saying “yes” to every friend request.

Status Updates

Status Updates invite you to answer the question “What’s on your mind?”

It is perfectly acceptable to post updates here related to your work life. Use good judgment on what you write!

There are many people who have lost jobs, been passed over for interviews, and lost control of their work situations for posting careless, unconsidered statements.

Many people use Status Updates to share what they are doing at a given moment, or an event they will be attending.

Why should others care?
Using Facebook intelligently yields stronger relationships with those you have a strong affinity.

Into horror movies? Share the update you’re going to see the latest sequel to “Saw” at 3 p.m. and the theatre where you’re going. Adding these details make it easy to create a group event quickly and on the fly. It also generates topics of conversation.

“Oh, I read you went to ‘Saw’ the other night. How was it?”

The same approach applies for theatre, concerts, sporting and political events, or other activities.

If you want to organize a group of people around a common point, using Facebook to find them and coordinate the event is very simple and fast.

Remember how detailed you were in completing your profile in the previous unit? This is where that thoughtfulness pays off. By including as many relevant interests, commonalities or other factors, you open yourself to contact by others with similar interests. Imagine how hard it would be to find similarly interested people without these tools.

This is why Facebook has grown to be THE social networking platform in the world.

By posting news articles to Facebook, you can create spirited conversations among your network. Posting news articles also provides a way for the hottest news of the day – among your network – to surface to the top. Don’t have time enough to read the newspaper or catch the news? Check your Facebook to see what people are talking about.

Many news organizations feed their content to a Facebook Page now. Rather than visiting the news organization’s web site, or receiving email updates, you can simply fan their Page on Facebook to have their updates appear on your Wall.

Unifying your preferred information sources with your network will streamline your information intake through a mixture of knowing what your friends and family are doing plus what’s going on in the world.

Given that the average Facebook user is on the site for 55 minutes, you can see why this consolidation of streams yields such a lengthy visit time.

Photo Albums
Facebook’s Photos feature enables you to see the latest pictures posted by people in your network.

Just like Status Updates tell you what people are doing, the Photos update shows you what they are doing.

Again, use good judgment when posting photos. Use good judgment as well in your privacy settings to control who can see what.

Photos get people into more trouble than Status Updates because they do not think about who might see them.

Do you want to be the guy remembered for being nice to his dog, or the guy passed out on a couch with beer and liquor bottles surrounding him?

Like it or not, we make judgments about people based on what we see. And photos seem to have an infinite lifespan on the Internet. One click of the mouse, and the image can be saved to a person’s computer – ready for emailing or posting elsewhere, and you cannot regain control of that situation.

For details on how to upload photos and create photo albums, plus how to share these images and keep them private, visit this link on eHow.com

Climb the Bean Stalk…err…Wall

Ready to scale that Wall but need a few footholds first? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of joining a new site and wanting to add all the people you know.

The downside to this enthusiasm is “over-friending.” This means adding people indiscriminately no matter how well you do or do not know the person.

Research suggests that we can know about 150 people before our relationships become less meaningful and more tenuous. Adding more people also means more updates to follow and more interactions to manage.

You will see members with hundreds of friends. This does not mean the person is exceedingly popular – unless he or she is a high-profile figure – but usually reveals a person who confuses numbers with popularity.

Only you know how many connections are right for you. My recommendation is to add gradually, assess for a period, then remove the ones who do not bring value.

How do you judge value? If the person is constantly suggesting you become a Fan of various Pages, or suggesting you should join various Groups, or sending you requests for “bits of flair” or “farm animals” (taken from popular games on Facebook), then the person is more a source of annoyance than value.

If you are concerned about the person seeing that you removed the connection, you can also Hide their updates from your Wall to reduce the status update clutter.

In short, be considerate by adding only people you know in real life and or who agreed to friend you online.

Did Someone Take It Too Far?

Are you guilty of over-friending? Have you been a victim of a drive-by friending? Share your story. We’ll bring the coffee and wine. Post your story in the Comments section for a response.

If your LinkedIn profile is your professional side, then Facebook is your personal side. Regularly using your profile on Facebook through status updates, friending other people, becoming Fans of Pages and joining Groups are ways to round out your social media profile.

Facebook is the dominant social networking web site for connecting with friends and family online. With over 350 million members as of January, 2010, its audience continues to grow and demonstrate high levels of activity.

With LinkedIn, you are optimizing your profile to be found by people searching for you online. In contrast, Facebook offers more customizable security and privacy functions to tailor your degree of visibility to the world.

This post is longer than normal because we have a lot to cover, and it’s best to do it all at one time. This unit will focus on how to create a great profile and keep it fresh with Status Updates.

1. Profile Basics

Signing Up
Start by signing up at www.facebook.com with your first and last name, your email address and a password. Facebook also requires your gender, and birth date. Don’t worry about showing your age – this can be hidden later in the process but it’s used to reveal age-appropriate content only.

Even though there may be other people on Facebook with your name, your email address, birth date and location will keep you unique among the listings.

Facebook will then present two oddly shaped words (called CAPTCHA) that you must type into the box below them. These are a deterrent to email spammers trying to create bogus accounts on the site.

2. Add Friends

Adding friends to increase your network is at the heart of Facebook.

After you successfully enter the CAPTCHA words, Facebook walks you through four steps in setting up your profile.

The first two steps include adding and finding friends already on Facebook.

In Step 1, Facebook will suggest people you may already know. Part of the sign up process includes providing access to your email address book. This is so that Facebook can scan it (and find who you know on the site).

At this stage, it also scans for your email address among the users who have already submitted their address book. Think of it as a reverse-lookup.

If you see a person you know, and want to connect with that person, click the link “Add as a friend” below their name. A request will be sent to the person to approve or ignore your request. You will receive many of these requests as you begin to be found, and people want to connect with you.

These users will not know that they were suggested to you so it is OK if you choose to forgo adding them to your network for now. You can click “Skip” next to the “Continue” button if you prefer to bypass this step.

In Step 2, Facebook will ask to access your email address book to scan for email addresses of members already on the site. This is a quick way to find people you know.

If you are using an online email service such as Google’s Gmail or Yahoo’s mail, this is a quick and easy scan.

If you are using email that is stored on your computer, such as Outlook, then this tool will not work since Facebook is trying to access your email history on a service’s computer system – not your personal machine.

Click “Skip this Step” if your email provider is not an online service.

3. Completing Your Profile

In Step 3, you may add your high school and college information as a way to find classmates from schools you attended.

You may also enter the name of a company where you work now or in the past to find colleagues.

Facebook will then use these pieces of information to suggest yet more people you may know. Review the suggestions and add the ones you know and want as connections. There is no rule of thumb on how many friends you should or should not have. Having too few means you are either new or not very active, and having too many could mean you’re spending too much time online.

Likewise, avoid friending people you have only met once and briefly. While that is acceptable on LinkedIn, reflecting how business and professional relationships are more cut and dry, in personal life this action assumes a stronger degree of connection than the other person may feel. Unless you explicitly ask to friend the person on Facebook, it is not a smart tactic.
The same goes for friends of friends. If you look through your friends’ list of friends and see someone you want to meet, ask for an introduction. Do not friend the person on the assumption that it is welcome. This can be viewed as “stalkerish” behavior.

4. Adding Your Photo

Using your photo online helps other people find you. It also is an opportunity to reveal yourself in a very human way.

Facebook lets you upload your photo from your computer or you can use your computer’s camera to take a quick snapshot.

Make sure your photo is clear and your face is visible. You can post group photos and artistic shots in your Photo section later. For now, focus on being identifiable.

You can reuse your LinkedIn profile photo if you like.

Don’t forget to smile!

5. Rounding Out Your Profile

Now that you have the basics, it’s time to build a full profile.

Facebook presents a page where you can add friends, update your profile, and modify your privacy settings.

Let’s start by clicking on “View and edit your profile.”

Basic Information
We will focus on your Basic Information window in the middle to start.

You can choose to reveal your gender in your profile, and your birth date. Whether you do this or not is a personal choice. There is no benefit or loss with either choice.

For “Current City” list where you now live. This greatly improves your chances of being found by others. Do the same for “Hometown” for the same reason.

Most people add their family to their Facebook network. If you are worried about some family members seeing what you may post, don’t be. There are ways to carefully reveal who can see what in your profile. We’ll get to those in the next stage.

For “Relationship Status” select the right one for you. For “Interested In” select the right one for you as well. And “Looking For” is the same.

Why are these three included? While you don’t have to answer these if you prefer not to, your answers create opportunities to connect with similar people. Also, advertisers use this demographic data to target relevant ads in Facebook to you.

For “Political Views” and “Religious Views” you may want to opt out of answering. I suggest this because nothing elicits more high-strung emotions and arguments than politics and religion. If your network is pretty homogenous and like-thinking, or you are adamant in your positions, then answering these makes sense.

I caution against it because you never know who believes what, and friendships are lost over divisive issues. At the least, give this some thought before answering since you can update your profile at any time.

Click “Save Changes” when done.

Personal Information
Click the triangle pointing to “Personal Information” to open the window.

In each of the categories, you are given a free-form text box to enter as much as you wish. Separate items by commas. As in other parts of your profile, these entries are used to target information to you that matches your interests.

Enter as much or as little as you wish.

Click “Save Changes” when done.

Contact Information
Due to concerns over identity theft and general privacy, I recommend you enter only the information you feel is necessary.

If you like to use instant messenger programs like Yahoo Instant Messenger or Google’s GTalk, you can add your handle for the different systems.

Facebook has an integrated chat feature so you may prefer using it than your regular instant messenger program.

Adding your City/Town and ZIP codes are safe ones – these make it easier for people to find you to add to their networks.

Adding a link to your own web site is a smart entry, so be sure to include it if you have one.

Contact Information: Privacy Settings
Notice those little padlock icons to the right of each entry?

Click the downward pointing triangle for options of who can see each piece of information.

Facebook’s privacy settings recognize you will have different degrees of connection to people. Depending on the information, you may want only those people you add as friends to have access to it. You may be comfortable with that information being accessible to friends of friends (second degree connections). If you want, you can open the information up to “everyone” which makes it viewable in search engine results.

How private versus open you want to be is a decision for each individual. I recommend considering the piece of information you are sharing, and how readily available you want it to be. As mentioned above, you can change these settings at any time. Regardless of your decision, be sure to review the settings for each item and select the one appropriate for you.

Education and Work
Last you may add the schools you attended to find classmates and employers to find present or former colleagues.

Not everyone is comfortable with friending a coworker on Facebook because we retain a distinct sense of difference between our work lives and our personal lives. Do not be offended if a coworker seemingly never accepts a friend request – and do not pester people to accept them. This is rude and unnecessary. We are not seeking to see who can have the most people sign our yearbooks before the semester ends and we all leave for summer.

This is also an example of why revealing your political leanings or religious views can be a source of friction, and worth consideration before publication.

Sometimes the people we have fond memories of are also people who have moved on to different phases of life. That means not everyone wants to keep in touch with those they used to know. This reflects how we grow and change over time.

While it is nice to catch up and say hello once in a while, keeping up to date on a regular basis through Facebook status updates is probably too much contact with these individuals.

We have to take this into consideration when reconnecting with people from our past. Not everyone wants to reconnect – respect that boundary and do not take it personally.

All of our relationships and friendships have varying degrees of intimacy. What you share with your best friend now is not what you shared with your best friend in high school, probably. Unless your best friend from then is still your best friend today!

Finalize Your Privacy Settings
While the default privacy settings are probably a safe bet for a majority of people, I recommend you visit these periodically.

As social media becomes more and more prominent in our lives and a key way for people to learn about us, we have to practice more control over what is shared about our lives. Celebrities and politicians have had publicists and public relations experts to manage these flows of information. Now, you need to exercise some of the same judgments in your life.

Let’s review what Facebook’s Privacy settings do.

Click on the Account tab in the upper right, and go down to Privacy Settings.

Each part of your profile has an independent privacy setting. You can choose the level of privacy by category by clicking on the button on the right. You can choose from:
• Everyone
• Friends of Friends
• Only Friends
• Customize

The first three are self-explanatory. Let’s look at Customize further.

By creating a Customized privacy setting, you can strategically filter out who can and cannot see that category’s contents.

The first section allows you to choose who can see the content:
• Friends of Friends
• Only Friends
• Specify People
• Only Me

By choosing the first option, your second-degree connections can see information about you. This is typically suitable for your hometown or where you live now, and other basics.

Choosing “Only Friends” constrains the information further to only people you have a one-to-one connection with. Selecting “Specify People” reduces the content to be viewable ONLY by those you approve to see it. The last option of “Only Me” is for the most private information. What’s the point of posting information on a social network that nobody can see? The content may be information you want to share with others one by one or on an as-needed basis, with the ability to withdraw permission at will.
Using these options wisely lets you share information selectively with your network and avoid potential conflict, too.

For example, if you support one view on a controversial view but you are unsure if your neighbors or certain friends think the same way, it is safer to limit your postings on that topic (whether “for” or “against”) to a list of only those who agree with you.

Though we hold our First Amendment right to free speech dearly, we do not always exercise the best restraint when dealing with others who oppose our views.

Consider these settings as tools to use wisely to keep in the peace. Your option is to avoid making controversial statements online.

Remember, too, that potential employers research you online. If they see your postings, and feel concerned by them, you may have forfeited an opportunity without ever knowing why you didn’t that get that interview.

Face Face Face / Give Me Face

Paint that profile with the best palette in shades of You. Some blue for in the cloud moments, a little red when you feel randy, and some white to show your purity, too. What’s in your Profile? Who has the best Profile you know? Spread the love in the Comments section for a response.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and three of his classmates while they were students at Harvard University in 2003.
According to the latest Facebook entry on Wikipedia, “(m)embership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service. In March, 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale.

“This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League and Boston area schools, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.

“Facebook incorporated in the summer of 2004 and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company’s president. In June, 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.”

Facebook hosts over 350 million active users (Facebook) worldwide as of January 2010. Were Facebook a country, it would be the third most populous after China and India (Economist). It dominates all other social networks, and its audience continues to grow each day. The average user visits at least once a day and spends 55 minutes interacting with friends and family on the site.

Why Is Facebook So Popular?

Facebook’s growth can be attributed to the “network effect” – a phrase originally used to describe the rapid growth of telephones.

The “network effect” states that the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it (Economist).

Two measures of its activity are very revealing:
• Through the ads displayed on the site, Facebook took in over $435 million by October 2009.
• Over 2.5 billion photos are uploaded each month by users.

The Facebook Wall

Status updates, comments back and forth between your connections and you, and other items you post are shown on your Wall.

Your Wall is where your “social graph” is visible to you. Your “social graph” is which people are nodes in your network, and the links between people are friendships.

The more your “social graph” grows, the more insights you can have into the relationships you have and those around you. By seeing what matters to people, you can profit from this knowledge by understanding better how to participate in and contribute to conversations.

The Wall is a chronological stream of your activity, viewable by others connected directly with you on Facebook.

Think of the Wall as your personal bulletin board where others can post items of interest to you, where you can share items with others (photos, music, videos, news articles – anything online).

This is the primary way you interact with your network on Facebook: by reading the News Feed and Status Updates, you can watch and comment on other people’s status updates throughout the day.

If LinkedIn is your professional, office persona, then Facebook is your happy hour, off-hours persona that rounds you out as a complete person.

While you will have friends and connections on both LinkedIn and Facebook, you will want to use your judgment to determine if your LinkedIn contacts are suitable connections for the non-career aspects of your life.

It’s Not Just Profiles: Groups Count Too

In addition to creating a profile and connecting with the people you know, Facebook offers Groups as a central gathering spot for those interested in or supporting a given topic. Whether it’s a political activity, an upcoming event, neighborhood association or other point in common, Facebook Groups are created and maintained by members. Most feature open membership so you can join and leave Groups at will.

When people began trying to connect with brands, artists, and businesses on Facebook, Groups was not the best tool for that need. That’s why Pages were created.

Pages Are Profiles for Companies

In response, Facebook developed Pages in 2009 as a commercial alternative for companies and brands to promote their products and services on the site. As of January 2010, over 1.6 million Pages have been created. Members “Fan” the company’s Page and receive updates from the organization.

While Pages, and social media marketing in general, have met with mixed success, some companies such as Coke, Dell, and NPR have used them to great effect to enhance interest and participation in their brands.

Want the Low Down on the 101?

Unsure of how to create a profile or what certain settings mean? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Social media introduces a new facet into your life, one that is exciting, valuable and when done right does not require a huge time commitment. In fact, you can do it on an impulse basis – which often proves to be the best moments of clarity. These random thoughts will accumulate, and you will soon become comfortable with actively using social media in your everyday life.

This book-as-a-blog is written for the social media beginner to intermediate social networker. If you are a self-driven individual who enjoys learning new skills, this is for you.

Remember, it’s about collaborating, acting, sharing, networking, participating, and inspiring. And as Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0” said, “There is no hiding anymore and transparency and authenticity are the only means to survive and thrive in this new digital kingdom.”

Social media users interact to find friendship and commonalities, and this requires that you have something interesting to bring to the conversation, that you show respect, and that you don’t impose on others. A friend remembers you and what you stand for.

That Spark of Inspiration

My initial idea for this eBook was to help myself better learn about social media for job search functions.

When I want to learn new skills, I rewrite what I’m learning in my own words to better retain the new knowledge. I have several Moleskin notebooks dedicated to specific books.

Then I started meeting more and more people who were also in job search mode.

More jobs were evaporating than being created and recruiters were receiving hundreds of resumes within hours of posting positions on their web sites.

To combat the deluge of resumes, recruiters were beginning not to review the resumes they received through their web sites. Instead, they quietly exchanged names of good candidates among themselves. It was a matter of efficiency and quality versus sifting through hundreds of resumes.

Layoffs continued to pour people onto the streets of Seattle by the hundreds, just like they did across the rest of America.

I witnessed people become progressively more desperate to return to work after overcoming sticker shock of salary reductions of drops of 15-25% or more in an environment where the employer set the price – not the market – to lower salaries that would keep their companies afloat. It was painful for us all.

In April, 2009, I attended a LinkedIn 101 class and about 50 people came, filling the room to capacity. As the speaker began, I glanced around and guessed the average age was mid-40’s, with an even mixture of men and women. I noticed great fear on their faces.

The speaker surveyed the crowd regarding their current employment status. Many had been with the same company for over 10 years and in their careers for over 15 years. They were hardworking and loyal marketers, engineers, programmers, network managers, project managers, finance and human resources professionals – the gamut of American middle-class, white-collar workers. The American Dream never felt more out of reach; more like the American duping.

As the presentation proceeded, the full advantages and special tricks of LinkedIn were explained. I learned some great tips I now use everyday. When the discussion shifted to take questions and offer answers, I glanced around again.

This time, almost every member in the crowd had that classic look of a deer caught in headlights.

And This Book Was Born

This LinkedIn 101 class reflected what I have encountered at other social media events: “I’m on LinkedIn but I don’t really use it.” Or, “My kids use Facebook but I don’t know what it is.”

How could these otherwise intelligent, and modern professionals not know how to use some of the most powerful and free technologies, the very tools that could most help them find new careers?

After seeing the scary expressions that night, and hearing this reaction a few dozen times over at the many networking events I attended, I decided to address this dire need for a straightforward book that explained all the social networking platforms in a way that would be friendly, achievable, accessible and manageable for an audience who is smart but feeling inept at marshalling the tools and benefits of social media.

By researching, testing, and combining the best of the best online resources, I have distilled these into a winning set of core skills to give you the simplest, strongest and most basic solutions to marshalling social media.

This book will get you up to speed quickly with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and blogging tools that empower you to use them in an integrated fashion.

This will minimize your time managing your social networks and enable you to make meaningful contributions that simultaneously create solutions for your needs—in ways that also support others.

The Internet Is (Over)Loaded With How-To’s

Social media can be like drinking from a fire hydrant. This book turns down the flow of water to a manageable rate so you get exactly the amount you need and don’t drown.

While you can easily find much of this book’s contents through a search on Google, the sheer number of choices available is overwhelming. That is part of what I mean to address: which resources will serve your particular wants and needs?

Recognizing how frustrating deciding which venues might help you the most can be daunting. That is why I have collected and refined it all into a single source that provides multiple jumping-off points that help you explore specific topics in greater detail.

My second goal was to support you, the reader, in building these lessons into a progressive, start-to-finish method that gives you the following: (1) gets you on the right track using best practices, (2) keeps you up to date on the latest enhancements and tools, and (3) opens a precise, just-right approach that removes the confusion and intimidation.

Just an Hour a Day

If you worry that using social media sites requires a lot of attention and maintenance, then remember that you are in charge of your time and how it gets used. Don’t let the technology monopolize your time or distract you from your primary concerns.

Devote one hour-a-day to working on one chapter of each unit (set a timer to help you). In one week, you can finish the book with a stellar online reputation.

While you can share updates of your cat’s odd behaviors or your child’s antics, most social media pros do not recommend that you do this. Remember when your mom learned how to use email, and began sending you animated, glittery teddy bear grams 10 times a day? Don’t be your mom.

Use these tools productively! Do not spend all day online. Once you get started, though, you will likely find it rewarding enough that it quickly becomes a part of what you do daily. You will become more conscious of, “I should post this on Facebook” moments.

This book shows how to focus on being a contributing member instead of a person falling into the black hole of frivolity that can also be the shadowy feature of social media.

What helps me each time I get on to a social media site is this modern truism: “By giving value, I get value in return.”

Social Media Is About Sharing

If you find that this blog helps you, please share it with others.

Remember, pay it forward by helping other people get what they need and want. You will then find those same people helping you with what you need and want. This eBook on social media can get you there, especially in the new world that practices collaboration over competition. With the gifts of social media, there’s no doubt that we’re moving from a me culture to a we culture.

Not Sold Yet?

Want to ask a few pre-sale questions before committing? We can’t give you a toaster if you act now but we’ll put your fears at ease. Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

With the economic situation affecting millions of lives globally, we are connecting and reconnecting in new ways. People are attending networking events in droves to learn new skills and meet new people. Groups with mutual interests are self-forming and self-directing collectively without any formal structure – and producing great work.

And with these behaviors comes the impetus to open up, to be transparent, to admit our vulnerabilities, to drop selfish agendas and begin looking beyond ourselves to meet not only our own needs and desires but those of others.

One tool that answers this is social media.

Connecting with others is a social activity. Connecting with others in a meaningful way is networking. And networking with a collaborative view in mind in an online, virtual way (called web 2.0) will surely change the way we work with others. For a history on this kind of social change through social media, see Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom by Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta.

In the past few years, social networking and social media have become prominent topics in the ongoing transformation of life online.

By now, you have surely heard of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, probably Twitter, and maybe even read a few blogs. But what hidden value does each of them hold for you?

Consider that social media is changing the way we connect, work together, and sustain relationships, and you will quickly see why it matters.

Social media is the technology that knits together, online, what you do in real everyday life: talk to people, bond over commonalities, and form mutually beneficial relationships.

Social media thrives on participation and making connections. It is media in which you can easily participate and add your contribution. It is an arena where your unique perspective has influence and your precise credibility is prized. Whether you’re a high school drop out or an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, your offerings may be a real value to others and a key motivator for you to keep active in various virtual communities.

Once you understand how to use the various tools (the ones most relevant to you), you will find that they extend your reach by many degrees.

Social media is the set of tools, the digital manifestation, the driving the need to share important information in ways that are simple and efficient.

As social networking sites like Facebook have exploded–especially for the babyboomers—we now share with other people in our network more about our lives and the lives of those we know.

It’s been said that, “It isn’t who I know that matters so much as who my friends know” that makes the difference. Those second-degree connections (what Malcolm Gladwell calls loose affiliations) have proven to have the most value in networking and in marketing. Now technology makes it easier to uncover who knows whom. Ready to play private investigator without being called a stalker?

Browse through a friend’s LinkedIn connections. Did you know that David knows Charlie who knows Shawna, the same Shawna you happened to meet recently by chance?

Your circle just tightened by a degree through closing an outlying tangent. The added benefit is that Shawna is friends with the hiring manager of a company where you want to work. This is the magic of networking. Even economists like John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison are realizing the magnetic force of such networking. They call it the Power of Pull.

It’s also the power of social media: it flattens and equalizes the access to information that makes it possible to connect to people and ideas that are important to you.

When you share a New York Times article on Facebook, you share it with every one of your friends there. What conversations are you creating? What questions are you helping to answer? What sparks are you igniting? You may not always know but taking credit isn’t where the value lies. Inspiring another person is where your currency now trades.

With simple tasks you can do each day, this eBook teaches you not only the tools you need to use regularly but also how to use them in an integrated fashion that increases your online presence in ways that get you recognized as a go-to person. By taking ownership of your digital footprint, you begin to build Brand You. Brands (and careers) are not built overnight. Both require hard work. Now is the time to seize the (free!) tools to make you more agile, more connected and a great resource.

Adopt these behaviors today – not only when you are job searching.