As you are probably aware, Facebook has made quite a few changes lately! I’m writing a series of posts on some of those changes with tips to help you learn more about them. This post will give some tips on subscriptions and privacy concerns.
Last week I attended Mari Smith’s live webinar on the recent Facebook changes and she shared some important information. Click here to go to her slideshare with a link for a replay of the webinar.
The webinar replay is 90 minutes long, so I’m highlighting just a few topics in each of my posts. I highly recommend watching the entire webinar when you have 90 minutes – it’s worth it!
Subscriptions: You now have the option to “subscribe” to other Facebook users (if they have turned on their subscribe feature). Think of this as similar to “following” someone on Twitter or “subscribing” to someone’s blog posts.
- If you are interested in the posts from a public figure or industry leader (like Mari Smith for instance) but do not feel comfortable sending a friend request (or the public figure does not accept friend requests from just anyone), you can Subscribe.
- If you are Friends with someone, you are automatically subscribed to their posts, so nothing has to be done for the friends you already have.
Your Subscribers:
- If you want to give others the option to subscribe to YOU, you can turn on that feature and anyone on Facebook can “subscribe” to your Public posts.
- Subscribers can comment on any of your Public posts (they do not have to be a Friend). Keep that in mind with the content you post. If you no longer want a subscriber to comment on your posts, you must Block that person.
- You may want to think about separating your audiences when making a post. Some content will be fine as a Public post but content of a more personal nature can be made visible to only those people on a specific Smart List or Custom List. For example, if I want to share photos and details about my daughter’s Homecoming Dance with family and close friends but not with my subscribers or business contacts, I would choose the Family or Friends List in the post’s drop down share menu. Posts that are more business-related and suitable for any audience (like this blog post) would be tagged as a Public post.
- Just keep in mind that if you give the entire Facebook community the option to subscribe to you, then you probably want to set tighter privacy controls on your personal information.
- A great suggestion from Mari Smith about posts for Family or Friends only: just in case they do not pay attention to the small icon that shows the type of post, she types a qualifying statement as the first sentence of the post: “This post is for family and friends only”….That way your family and friends will know it’s visible to just them and feel more comfortable commenting on the post.
Speaking of content, another great suggestion from Mari is her “Three Point Test” for content. Before you post something, ask yourself –
- Would I be comfortable with this content showing up on the front page of a a newspaper?
- Would I be comfortable with this content showing up in a Google search?
- Would I be comfortable having my mother see this content?
Parents: the “Subscribe” option (letting others subscribe to your posts) is supposedly only available to users 18 and over. This is reassuring because with teenage daughters (15 and 17), I really don’t want them having the option to open their currently private accounts to subscribers.
But I would advise any parent to check the age your child has put on their account – I’ve seen some 14 or 15 year olds enter their age as 18, which now would give them the option to open their accounts up to subscribers. (You can never be too careful…)
Two last points:
Check the privacy settings on your photo albums. You can have different privacy settings for each album. Keep this in mind if you open your account to subscribers.
Check the privacy default on any mobile apps when you are making posts.
Stay tuned for my next posts, for a few important points on creating and using custom friend Lists and the “Ticker”.
About Terry League