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Control what people see on Facebook

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26th Apr 2011
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David H Ringstrom explains how to adjust your Facebook settings so that business associates won’t be able to see what you post on the site about your personal life.
 
Many accountants - particularly younger ones - rely on Facebook for both personal and professional reasons. But problems can occur when the two get mixed up.

Turning down a friend request from a business associate can cause diplomatic trouble, but accepting it may force you to be more circumspect in what you post on the social networking site.

This article explains how to configure your Facebook friends list so that only your closest friends will see what you post unless you choose to share with a broader group.
 
The first step to better personal privacy is to create a list of friends that you want to exclude from your general posts. You can then adjust your Facebook settings to  manage what these friends see when you post on Facebook. Here’s how to do it:
 
1. Click Profile, and then Edit Profile, as shown here:
 
Access your Facebook profile
 
 
2. Click on Featured People, as shown in the next image below.

3. Click the link for Create New List:
 
Featured Friends- Create New List
 
 
4.  When the Create New List window appears, enter a name such as Business Friends, as shown in the next image (after step 7 "Save your changes).
 
5. Click on any friends that you wish to include in the list, as shown in Figure 4. Your selections will be marked in blue with a checkbox in the lower-left-hand corner. A benefit to this is you can also include pages that you "like" on Facebook. You may not realize that clicking the Like button grants permission to the administrators of those "liked" pages to be able to view your wall and other information on Facebook.
 
6. Click the Create List button once you've made your selections. You'll be able to easily edit the list at any time going forward.
 
7. Click to Save your changes.
 
Create List
 
8. If the "Business Friends" list appears in your Featured Friends section, you can remove it as shown below (after step 10 "Choose Privacy settings"). Most likely you don't want your "business friends" to know that you think of them as such.
 
9. Choose Account.
 
10. Choose Privacy Settings.
 
Featured Friends section
 
 
11. Click Custom.
 
12. Click Customize Settings.
 
Custom Privacy Settings screen
 
13. Click the menu next to Posts By Me in the Things I share section and choose Customize, as shown in the next image, below.
 
14. Enter "Business Friends" in the Hide This From field, and then click Save Setting. Repeat steps 12 and 13 for any of the other items in the Things I Share section that you wish to limit access to.
 
15. Click the Facebook button in the left-hand corner once you've made your selections.
 
Things I Share section
 
16. On your Profile, click the button with a lock on it below the What's On Your Mind field, and then choose Customize (or Custom, your wording may vary).
 
17. Enter Business Friends in the Hide This From These People, click the Make This My Default Setting, and then click Save Setting. Going forward, you can choose Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only if you want to share something with a broader group.
 
Things I Share section
 

About the author
David H Ringstrom CPA heads Atlanta-based software and database consultancy Accounting Advisors. He presents Excel training webcasts for AccountingWEB partner CPE Link and contributes articles on Excel to Microsoft Professional Accountant's Network newsletter. He can be reached by email at david[AT]acctadv.com.

Replies (5)

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Torben Halvorses owner of PaperLess Document Management for Sage
By torbenhalvorsen
26th Apr 2011 16:26

Useful For Sure

A most useful article.

Personally I have found that 12 months ago I could draw the line between Facebook friends and Twitter or LinkedIn business friends. Now it seems to be that all these boundaries are merged and people I network with are networked on the platform(s) of their choice, and that can be Facebook for business too.

It is useful to know this as you describe, but for me I still work by the way that what I post is for anyone to see and its just me as I am, take it or leave it, as you wish. If I start going down the line to control who sees what then I better avoid posting at all.

I know it will be different for different people, but i find this way simpler: for now anyway !

Phil

Accounting the PaperLess way™

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By La BoIS Saint
28th Apr 2011 11:27

FB

What a faff, especially as most problem posts are the ones on the way back from the pub!

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By sayedhasan
29th Apr 2011 09:27

facebook security

 Very use ful article, Thanks

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By chatman
03rd May 2011 02:19

Too Complicated

Thanks for the post.

I couldn't see how to stop people seeing if they are in that group or how to change the name of the group once I had created it (in case the previous step didn't work).

Looks very complicated. I think the easiest thing is not let people be FB friends if you don't want them to  know what you are like.

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By dringstrom
05th May 2011 14:04

Thoughts from the article's author
 Chatman, I agree it's a complicated process. I reworked the article a couple of times to streamline it as best as I could, but I think everyone will agree that the privacy settings in Facebook are comprised of chutes and ladders, surrounded by funhouse mirrors.Phil and La Bois Saint, I agree about being selective about posting on Facebook, but at least now there's a way to split the difference as the social media boundaries blur together.Sayed, thank you! I'm glad you found it helpful!

 

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