10 Tips for Using Facebook in Your Company & Professional Profile

Since Facebook started as such a casual and interpersonal social media site, many professionals tend to forget that when it comes to business, it’s all business. Keeping your personal life separate from your professional life can be difficult, but in all honesty, most clients don’t want to hear about how smashed you got at your Super Bowl party. In the same respect, your friends usually don’t care about your latest business partnerships. So we’re offering you 10 suggestions to help you use your Facebook profile like a professional.

1. Use your full name or company name as your Facebook display name. This is useful for many reasons. For starters, it just looks much more professional than a nickname or abbreviation. Also, it makes it simple to search for you. Being a business professional, I’m sure you want potential clients to be able to search for you by first or last name (or company name). Having Johnny12345 as your display name won’t make it simple and easy to find the business professional, Mr. Jonathan Collins.
2. Upload a recent photo of yourself. If it is a personal profile, include a picture of yourself. If it is you company page, include a clear and recognizable image of your company logo or image. Regardless, upload the image as quickly as possible, so that returning clients recognize you (or your business) and new customers have a face to associate with the name. And this probably does not need to be mentioned, but do be sure your photo is professional and tasteful, no pictures of you in a group of people (which one are you?). Have you heard of the underage high school & college kids who got kicked off their athletic teams for having a picture of themselves on Facebook holding a beer? Well the same goes for you in a professional setting. Don’t make a dumb mistake like that.
3. Include as many professional and business details as you can. Your profile is the first thing a potential customer reads. Essentially, it is your (virtual) first impression. Include all contact information, including your professional email address, phone number, and company websites. Also include a brief history of you or your company, and what you specialize in. Include any past awards and achievements you’ve garnered, and provide a clear understanding of what you can offer new clients, employers, and partners.
4. Do not spam add friends. This seems like an obvious no-no, but many people try to add friends, friends of friends, and anyone else they can find. Despite what most entrepreneurial musicians on myspace.com think, this is not the proper way to network. I think this is very similar to spamming tons of email addresses (who hadn’t opted in) in a mass email blast. That’s illegal because it’s annoying. The same goes for Facebook, adding friends that way is irritating, and will turn people off to you.
5. Do not send mass messages to strangers. Just like adding friends, don’t spam messages to people who don’t know you. And it doesn’t have to even be spam, don’t send single messages to people who you think may be interested in you or your services. If you would like to contact someone regarding a business deal or proposition, use the traditional forms of contact, such as email or a good old fashioned phone call.
6. Do not spam friends either. Just because someone is your friend on Facebook doesn’t mean they want to receive your mass message blasts. It’s alright to send an occasional business message to friends, but only to small groups of people, specifically who are interested in your topic.
7. Do not add worthless applications to your profile. I can’t imagine anyone who would add the “Send a heart” or “Why do you like this person?” applications to their professional profile. So if you’ve done it, delete it. Now. These are annoying enough on personal pages, much less on company or professionally associated pages which are representing you as a potential employee or business partner.
8. Do not post sensitive business information wall to wall. Wall to wall posts are intended for casual, friendly posts. If you need to contact someone on Facebook with specific business information, use a private message. This means the conversation is only visible to the sender and receiver. Still, the best way to contact a business partner is through email or phone call.
9. Be cautious about what information you put out. This goes along with number 2, be careful what pictures of yourself you allow online. Aside from incriminating pictures, too much personal information can also lead to problems. Identity theft is a serious online problem, and so are over-infatuated individuals (cyber stalkers?) Be careful about what personal info you put, such as work history, birthday, etc.
10. Don’t use Facebook for connections that are solely business. Instead, use a business networking site, LinkedIn is a good option. As a general rule, you don’t add casual friends on LinkedIn, as it is purely used to business associates and connections. Facebook, especially in its beginnings, was used much more as a causal friendship networking site than for anything businesslike. Even today, many professionals still retain this idea.

All this negativity toward Facebook could lead you to believe I’m not a fan. On the contrary, I often manage TriMark Solutions’ Facebook page, and I think it is a valuable business tool, as the importance of social media networking has skyrocketed in recent years. Many business professionals are already familiar with many of the dos and don’ts of Facebook, but hopefully this post can shed a bit more light on the subject.