There is the ongoing “Privacy” issue with many professionals who use their personal Facebook profile to connect to other business professionals, and colleagues around the world.  But usually a lot of people fear, that they no longer can use Facebook for sharing holiday photos with their family and close personal friends.

Well, Im not sure if you are aware, but it is possible to change the settings in Facebook, to control which particular friends see what.  This is called “Friend Lists”.  I hope this short written tutorial will help you set up your Facebook profile to serve your Business and Personal interests:

How to Create A “FRIENDS LIST”

1. Open Facebook, and go to the top right corner and click on “Account”, then “Edit Friends”
   
2. On the right side, you will see “Lists”, then click on “Friends” listed underneath
   
3. At the top of this list, click on “Create new list”
   
4. Where it says “Enter a Name”, you create a name for your list.  If your first list is a Business List you could call it “Business Friends” or “Business Contacts” or “Business Network”.
5. Then you select from your list of Friends underneath, which ones you would like to add to this list.
6. When you are finished, click on “Create List” at the bottom.

Well done, now your Business Friend List is created.  You can go ahead and set up as many Friend Lists as you like, you can do one for “Family” or “Personal Friends” or “BNI” or “Chamber Friends” or “Networking Friends”.  The options are endless.  But if you are just keen to keep your Professional and Personal life separate, 2 lists will do.

Now that you have created your lists, you can set overall Privacy Settings for these lists:

How to Set up the Privacy Settings for your Friends Lists

1. Go to top corner again, and this time click on “Privacy Settings”
   
2. Then click on “Custom” on the left side bar, and then click on “Customize settings” at the bottom.  This is where you can tailor your Facebook for which Friend list can see what.
   
3. So now, for example, next to “Things I share”, you can see “Relationships” below.  Let’s just say that you do not want your Business List to see the status of your current relationship, but you don’t mind you family and close friends to see this.  So you click on the drop-down button next to “Relationships”, and select “Custom”
   
4. To set up this Privacy Setting, under “Make Visible To” and you select “Friends Only”, and then under “Hide this from”, you type the name of your Business Friend List (or whatever name you have given it.
   
5. Then you click “Save Setting”.  Now from this moment on, anyone listed in your “Business” Friend List will not be able to see your Relationship Status.
6. Now, you can go through the other Privacy options listed, and select what you would like each list to be able to see.

Cool, you’re finished.  Now your Facebook Personal Page should be set up into 2 lists – Business Friends and Personal Friends (and Family).  Now each time you add a new friend to your Facebook page, you can select which list to put them in, and your Privacy is (mostly) secure

Please note:  If at anytime you want to switch a friend from the Business List to the Personal List, or vice versa, this is very easy to do, and can be done under “Account” and “Edit Friends”.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial for Facebook and found it helpful.