In today’s world of social media, we upload just about every moment of our daily life. This means it’s increasingly difficult to separate your work and social life online.
It is common practice for companies to check the Facebook page of possible new employees to see what type of person they are. So if your personal Facebook page expresses beliefs that the company might disagree with, it could lead to you losing new job opportunities.
You can avoid this social media espionage into your personal life by following a few simple Facebook practices, for those seeking work or trying to keep your private and work life separate.
Below are a few ideas for managing your personal Facebook page so you can avoid the nasty situation of getting fired or missing a job opportunity.
Strategies to get the most out of your personal Facebook page
Since social networks make personal information so readily available to anyone with the internet, it is important to manage your accounts in such a way that will still keep your private life private.
Choose your friends carefully
If you are an employee at a company you are going to want to establish some privacy practices that keep your personal life from intertwining with your work life. New colleagues and even some bosses want to befriend their fellow colleagues or employees.
It is a good idea to keep your private and work life separated by not accepting their friend requests. If you feel obligated to accept their friend requests, not wanting to look rude, you can control what they see with Facebook’s customized sharing and privacy settings.
Good sharing practices
If you have colleagues or superiors on your Facebook, refrain from posting inappropriate things. If you still want to post things to your friends that would be inappropriate for work, simply customize your sharing settings on Facebook.
This feature allows you to share content with Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends only. You can also group your friends into lists and customize sharing options for each group of friends. This way content can easily be regulated.
For example you can customize your sharing so that only close friends can see all your photos, but business associates can see just a few. To change your sharing settings follow the steps in the section below.
Facebook privacy settings
Facebook makes finding and managing your profile easy. Simply click on the little lock icon in the toolbar with your notifications.
Clicking on the dropdown menu will give you a list of settings to choose from: ‘Who can see my stuff?’, ‘Who can contact me?’ and ‘How do I stop someone from bothering me?’. Each has more options once you click on it. Below we will review each setting in a little more detail.
Who can see my stuff?
Choose this option to control the privacy settings for sharing. This setting can also be found when you make a post. Simply click on the arrow next to the ‘Friends’ tab to see more options.
Once you have opened the dropdown menu you will see the following sharing options:
Select ‘Friends’ or ‘Public’. If you do not want others to see your posts select ‘Friends’ and only your Facebook friends will be able to see your post. This sharing function helps you share only to Friends on Facebook, which means people you have not befriended with will not be able to see your posts.
You can customize your sharing settings every time you post. This gives you greater freedom to choose who sees what.
Who can contact me?
Select this to reveal who can send you friend requests. This helps you determine who can befriend you and who can’t, making it easy to steer clear of colleague’s friend requests.
How do I stop someone from bothering me?
If you want to block someone who has been snooping around on your Facebook page you can click on this setting. Insert the person’s name or email to block them.
These basic settings will give you control over your private and work life. For a few more settings click on ‘See More Settings’.
This will give you more options for each section like choosing whether your Facebook profile will be picked up by Search Engines or not (beneath ‘Who can look me up’). Deactivating this setting will also help keep employer’s away from your Facebook page.
You can also change settings for posts in the past under ‘Who can see my stuff’. Plus you can find settings related to your ‘Timeline and Tagging’ in the toolbar to the left. Clicking on this feature reveals privacy settings related to your Timeline specifically, like ‘Who can see things on my timeline?’.
Another useful tool for managing your profile is to create Friend Lists. You can easily determine who you share things with on Facebook.
To make a list go to ‘Friends’ in the toolbar next to your Newsfeed. Hover on ‘Friends’ to see ‘More’ options. Click on ‘Create List’ to organize your friends into easily managed groups.
Final tips
Maybe for some these tips will seem obvious. But I’m pretty sure you should check these options once more if you don’t want your boss to see you tagged in an inappropriate photo! Once you know about the settings for your profile’s privacy it should no longer be detrimental to your work.
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