“Reprinted with permission from The National NetWorker“
Published April 2007
Everybody has heard of Facebook. But, how many people over the age of 30 have gone onto the site – or taken the next step and actually created a Facebook profile? I have and I am glad I have.
My kids spent a lot of time talking and working on their Facebook profile. They talk about the number ofFacebook friends they have and all sorts of comments like that. I tried to out do them by telling them about the the number of LinkedIn connections I had. With 2,500 versus 200, I figured I had blown them out of the water. In reality, I showed that I absolutely had no clue what Facebook was about.
They spend so much time on their Facebook profile and interacting with their friends, it finally dawned on me that maybe Facebook and LinkedIn were not the same beast. Like a good detective, I throw up my hands and begged one of my kids to give me a tour. I was totally and completely awed by what I saw. It is personal networking in a way that is totally amazing.
A Facebook profile is about who you are and what you are doing as a person. While LinkedIn is about working and connecting, Facebook is about living and breathing..
Facebook is about people you all ready know and care for while LinkedIn is about people you would like to meet. Facebook provides multiple ways to express your personality and what is important to you as a person. The feature set is so rich and powerful that it encourages networking and interactions.
My kids use Facebook to network with friends and relatives whom they have an emotional attachment to that live around the world and down the street..Facebook is that phone call from your kids or meeting that long lost friend and going for coffee.
I can only touch the surface of some of the ways Facebook encourages these interactions.
The core concept is that anything you place or change on your profile is reflected on each and every friend’s profile page..
The critical way to let people know what is most on your mind is your Status. It is used as an emotional beacon to the world. Creating it is simple – fill in a form that starts with “I am” You can fill it with one word or a whole sentence. For example “Bored” or “Writing his National Networker Monthly Article”. All your friends will get a note on their page saying “Zale is Bored” or “Zale is writing his Monthly National Networker Article”. They instantly know what is happening to you.
You can speak to another person so that the whole world hears you through “The Wall”. Each person has a wall, each group has a wall , each picture has a wall. You can write on your own wall and you can write on somebody else’s wall. And its just like a wall – every one of your friends can see your wall and you can see every one of your friend’s wall. Therefore when you write on Jack’s Wall – all of Jack’s friends can see what you wrote and respond to it. Don’t worry – you have the ability to delete what is on your wall.
Adding friends is easy and fun. You find somebody and you ask them to be your friend. Then you tell the world how you met them. Categories and details include work, school, family and a whole slew of others.
Photographs are another way people to connect up with people. You can post any picture you want. They you can “Tag” all your friends in your photo. They can post pictures of you and “Tag” you. Imagine the possibilities for family photo’s.
Speaking of families – Facebook has a feature called groups which I used for collecting my family and close family friends. A group profile is almost the same as a personal profile, you can have pictures, it has a wall and you can invite friends into it.
There is a blogging capability – on your profile its called notes. Its also kind of neat, because you can have other blogs automatically feed into it. So every time I make an entry in my business blog (www.ZaleTabakman.ca) it shows up in my Facebook profile.
The bottom line – Facebook is for adults.
Take Care
–Zale
Keyword Related posts:
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I’ve been somehow dettered to join Facebook since both my younger brothers are users. I had concerns it’s going to be childish. Back when cellphones were introduced here in Cairo, I found the text messages to be great. Sometimes you don’t want to call someone, but you’d still want to keep in touch so you text message them.
Now with Facebook, there are people you don’t want to call or text message, but you still want to keep in touch somehow – drop a hello, check on them etc. This is when Facebook comes VERY handy. I’ve been coming across people I haven’t seen or talked to since school or college. Facebook FTW