(Video tutorial at the end)
To optimize your personal profile and make sure that you are reaching all the people you want to, fill out all the areas of your “About” section. This means that you want to list every job you’ve ever had including the dates you worked there, every school that you’ve ever attended with the years that you were there, every city that you’ve lived in and where you live now all with dates.
Now when I tell people this I always get a few eyebrows shooting right up into people’s hairlines. Like “ain’t no way that I am telling Facebook all that stuff about me.” What most people don’t realize is that Facebook is so good at connecting you to people that you probably already know, but aren’t getting in front of. By filling out all of this information Facebook is behind-the-scenes going to find people who worked at your previous job, who went to school with you, or who lived in a town that you used to live in and suggest that you connect. Why is it important? Did you have a job before doing what you do now? I would hope that in these previous aspects of your life you built great relationships with people. Since I doubt that on the last day you were there you kicked open the front door turned around and shouted at everybody, “Farewell everyone, I’m off to be a real estate agent (or whatever it is you now do). And I would love the opportunity to serve you and your friends and family in all your future needs” Yeah I didn’t think so. Also, would it be safe to say that when you started this new career you didn’t call every single person that you’ve ever met in your entire life and tell them that you are now doing what you are currently doing? I feel pretty confident that whomever you had relationships with in the past may have no idea that what you do now, is what you are doing.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a program out there that you could enter this information into and it would spit out contact information for those people that you used to go to school with, that you used to work with, that you used to live by and allow you to subtly let them know that you are now doing XYZ. That is a program most companies would pay thousands of dollars to use. Heck, I have worked at companies that have paid thousands of dollars to get that information for people that had NO previous connection to the person who would be contacting them or the company at all!
The reason that this is so powerful is that people nowadays want to do business with someone they know, like, and trust. We have all become so aware of marketing and the impact it has on us, we tend to be very cautious about who we decide to engage with and more importantly spend our money with. Who do you think those people would rather reach out to if they had a question regarding something in your field? Would they be more comfortable reaching out and talking to someone that they had a positive relationship with in the past, or Joe Blow who sent them a postcard in the mail?
They’re always going to feel more comfortable with someone they feel like they already know, the goal is just making sure that they know what you do and the resources you can provide without making them feel like you are hard-selling them. This is where social media truly excels. It allows you to connect with and softly drip information on people and if done the right way, they never even feel like you are selling to them.
Often people are also very scared that information that they may not want people to see will be shown if they fill it in on Facebook. For example, if you are brand new to your industry people may lean towards working with a more seasoned professional. Also, people may not want to show that they are very young or very old. I personally don’t feel that sharing this information is going to deter the right people from working with you but everyone has a different level of comfort with what they share online. Me, I am an open book. If you want to know something about me just ask or better yet look at my social profiles. I share just about everything, but my husband feels that I am an over-sharer. He is the complete opposite of me, so much so people he went to high school with I am sure wonder if he is even still alive, since he is a ghost when it comes to social media.
No matter which end of the sharing spectrum you are on you can still leverage the amazing tools I just talked about. You just need to adjust who the audience is that will be able to see your information. Facebook gives you control over what is shown publicly, what is only shown to the people whose friend requests you have accepted, and what information only you can see. Ok so really only you and Facebook. 😉
So let me go through and explain how you can leverage all this Facebook awesomeness without broadcasting all your business to the world: When looking at your Facebook profile look in the left-hand column. You’ll see what you currently have in your about section. Here is where it will show your jobs, where you went to school, where you live those and those types of things. Depending on how your settings are you might have a lot of information in there or you might have no information in here. So in order to add or edit to this section, you’ll just want to click “Edit Details” and a pop-up box will pull up.
The details here will be broken down into sections: Work, Education, Current City, etc. Since most of these sections are going to be added or edited the same way I’m just going to cover how you how to edit your work experience and you will complete each section the same way. Let’s say you have a job already in there you’re just going to edit, to the right you will see a pencil icon that upon clicking will open up all your about section for editing. Hover your cursor over the job you would like to edit and to the right, you will see “Options” pop up. This is a drop-down box that lets you choose if you want to “see life event” “edit” or “delete.” Go ahead and choose edit to make changes. If you are adding additional work, at the bottom of the work section there is a plus sign and it says “add a workplace.”
When you were editing or adding a workplace it is very important that in the company field you make sure you get the actual company page. You want to make sure that the logo or whatever the company is using for their profile picture pulls up and you select it. As you start typing in the company that you are looking for, Facebook is going to start giving you suggestions for what they think you mean. If they cannot find it sometimes they will give you just a location indicator, meaning that this company may not have a page, you’ve spelled it wrong and someone else has when they were checking in, or you blocked the page after a less than stellar separation. If you get a greyed-out little place marker that’s not going to do you any good. Sometimes you have to type it in a couple of times and then it will pull up for you.
Once you have the company entered correctly, the other fields here are pretty much optional. You can go ahead and enter your position, city/town, and a description of what you did there if you want but it isn’t necessary. The two things that are really necessary here are making sure that you have the actual company and that you enter the dates that you worked there. Notice that if you click the I currently work here box it doesn’t allow you to add an end date so if you’re editing a job that you are no longer at, unclick that box and you can put an end date. I recommend that you put at least the year and the month of your start and end date, the day isn’t really that important but the more information you put in here the more likely you are going to get good results out of this effort.
You will see below where you can “Save Changes” or “Cancel” next to that it says public, or something else based on your current privacy settings, this is where you can change who is able to see the information you just entered. Click on the drop-down box it asks “Who should see this?” The first option, of course, is public, that’s me that’s what I choose, I’m an open book here you go everything about me is posted publicly. If you don’t want people to know that you are new in your industry then you can choose to just go in and put this on “only friends” what that means is that only people whose friend request you have actually accepted will be able to see this on your profile. You also can choose only me to keep it hidden from your profile.
Now I get asked all the time why in the world would I spend the time doing this and then select only me, what good is that going to do me? What what you don’t see happening is that you and Facebook can see that information. So behind the scenes, Facebook is going to go in and try to connect you with people who worked at the same place during those same times, who lived in the same towns at the same time, who went to the same school during the same time that you did. Do you see how this could be incredibly helpful in growing your sphere of influence without having to do anything really at all? What Facebook is going to do is take that information and they are going to suggest people you may know from it. Don’t worry this doesn’t mean the bully from high school that used to give you a wedgie and stole your lunch money every day is automatically going to become your Facebook friend, Facebook will suggest to you that you add him/her as a friend and suggest to him/her that they add you, but it’s completely up to you whether or not you’re accepting those friend requests.
A lot of times what people will do is see someone they know and they want to verify that it’s an actual profile for that person. Even if they don’t send you a friend request, they’re going to click on you, they’re going to look through your profile, and because you cleverly crafted your intro to say how much you love doing what you now do, they’re going to know that what you are doing now, even before friend requests or any messages are exchanged.
***I would also like to add that while you are editing your about section you scroll all the way through and take a look at all the information that has been accumulated over the years. You may want to do some editing here to make sure you are putting forth the professional image you would like others to see. You may want to do some editing of photos you posted or were tagged in. (Make sure that your settings are set so that any future posts you are tagged in require your approval before being posted to your timeline). Videos that you have shared, places that you have checked in at, sports teams and athletes that you like, the music you listen to, movies you’ve seen, TV shows, books, apps and games you have added, events you are interested in, the list goes on and on.
