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What Do You Look Like Online?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 3, 2024

So, What Do You Look Like Online?

This post is a riff on a rather old post, Do You Know What You Look Like Online. Essentially, the question is, if you were searching for someone (someone just like you, perhaps), what sorts of judgments would you make? What seems off?

What’s being suppressed, which aspects should you be promoting, and vice versa? Is the picture clear or fuzzy?

The gist of that article is, take control of your information, keep it as a uniform brand and check it every month or so. The corollary to this is one from Shama Hyder Khabani, which is, essentially, don’t spread yourself too thin. Concentrate in only a few places.

My Own Information—What I Look Like Online

Absolutely agreed. When I google my own last name, 40,900 hits come up. And, fortunately, my own website is on page 1 (Yay, SEO!). My Entrepreneur profile (writing I did for work) comes up on the first page of results. So do my Twitter/X and LinkedIn profiles.

Also on the first page are my Facebook profile, and my Amazon author page. Get to page 2 and there’s my profile on YouTube.

Another Angle

Putting my last name into quotation marks yields 6,480 hits. All of the same usual suspects come up on Page One of the results. And nothing is too weird or scandalous. Even MuckRack, which essentially just scrapes for your name, doesn’t have anything bad.

Hey, Bartleby published me!

How Accurate is the Information?

To my mind, checking and rechecking every single month might just be a bit excessive. Is there a need to keep your profile accurate? Sure. Flattering, or at least not damaging? Yes, particularly if you are looking for work.

But to keep it sterile and perfect, as you scramble to make it perfect every moment of every day? Eh, probably not so much.

My own profile is the product of just doing a lot, and it being published. It’s easy to find flattering info on me. What I look like online is competent more than anything else. There’s nothing radical.

As for less flattering stuff, well, let’s just say that I am glad the internet wasn’t around when I was in high school.

Yikes.

But…

I would like to think (am I naïve? Perhaps I am) that potential clients and employers will see the occasional typo and will, for the most part, let it slide unless the person is in copyediting.

I am not saying that resumes, for example, should not be as get-out perfect as possible. What I am saying, though, is that this kind of obsessive and constant vigilance seems a bit, I don’t know, much.

Will the world end if I accidentally type there instead of their on this blog? And, does it matter oh so much if I don’t catch the accident immediately? Even when you consider that I’m a writer. After all, I should know better, yes?

I mean, with all of this brushing behind ourselves to cover up and/or perfect our tracks, and all of the things we are leaving behind, where’s the time and energy to make fresh, new content and look in front of ourselves?

Clean Up Your Presence

To me, there is little joy in reading a blog post or website that looks like the person who put it together was barely literate. But there is also little joy in reading sterile, obsessively perfect websites and blog posts.

A little imperfection, I feel, is a bit of letting the ole personality creep in there. Genuineness – isn’t that what the whole Social Media experience is supposed to be about, anyway?

I refuse to believe – I hope and I pray – that a bit of individuality never cost me potential jobs or any company I’ve ever worked for potential clients.

And if it has, then that saddens me, to feel that, perhaps, people are paying a lot of lip service to the genuineness of Social Media but, when the chips are down, it’s just the same ole, same ole.

Genuineness is great. One you can fake that, you’ve got it made? Please, say it ain’t so.

And don’t get me started on AI.

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Risks of a Community Without Management

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Risks of a Community Without Management

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 3, 2023

Let’s Look at The Risks of Having a Community Without Management

Is yours a community without management?

The post is a riff on The Community Roundtable’s 5 Risks of Having A Community Without Management.

The author comes up with five good ones:

1. A Ghost Town
2. Land of 1,000 Flowers
3. Drama Central
4. A Circling Storm
5. A Clique

Ghost Town

Here’s what they mean. A Ghost Town is, essentially, either a more or less empty community or one without deep engagement. People may come in after an initial push and then just abandon the place.

Now, the converse to this is people who hang around forever and never seem to convert to paying customers of any sort. In a commercial enterprise, that’s no good, either.

But definitely you need for people to hang around, at least a little bit.

Land of 1,000 Flowers

The Land of 1,000 Flowers is where there is perhaps a little bit of everything but there is little connectivity.

Some of the problem could potentially be alleviated with a very good search engine, e. g. if people see that the question about who wrote Peter Rabbit has already been answered, they might just go to that answer, rather than asking it again.

Of course the downside to this is converting potential participants right back into lurkers.

Drama Central Without Management

Drama Central, ah, yes, this bit of juvenalia in a community without management. This is a byproduct of having a smaller community/one that is not too active. If there are 100 members, and one acts out, that one will loom large.

But with 1,000 members, the impact of that one person diminishes.

And with 1,000,000 members, they barely register as a blip on the screen.

And, even in a smaller community, if there are 100 members but also a good 1,000 topics are created every month, the one Drama Queen’s attention-grabbing me me me topic can be more or less swept under the rug.

However, if your users create only five or so new topics every month, guess what is gonna be front and center?

A Circling Storm

In A Circling Storm, there are a lot of entrenched factions, hostile to one another, when your community goes without management. Even in a well-moderated community, this can still happen in a Politics section (and, to a lesser extent, in a Religion section).

Hence people form strong opinions and do not want to back down.

How to handle it? I say let them argue, for the most part, but intervene if newbies are being chased off or it becomes too personal.

A Clique Without Management

A Clique, of course is a niche or fringe group that grabs and hogs the spotlight. This can be whiny teenagers (you know who you are), organic gardeners, birthers, I dunno.

They can absolutely create a self-fulfilling prophecy, e. g. if the only people they welcome are from Omaha, then those will be the ones who stick around.

And then eventually people from Poughkeepsie or wherever will not stick around and suddenly your board is filled with Nebraskans.

What to do? Well, it may seem obvious, or it may not. Manage the site! Don’t just leave it to chance!

Light Touch with Management

However, do not go overboard with any sort of community management. Heavy-handed community management can stifle.

So find a balance, and do your best to follow it, all while respecting the community and its interests, but nudging it in the proper directions if it threatens to go off-course.

You do not just have to let the boat go wherever the currents take it but, at the same time, you also need to leave the dock.

Years Later…

I still agree with a lot of this. But at the same time, the experience I have been having with Facebook has taught me that there are a lot of places where someone will just plain step up.

There are, for sure, times when the inmates really can intelligently run the asylum. And do not get me started on Twitter. Excuse me—X. Gahhh.

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community
• Are Off Topic Posts Ever Okay?

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Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 23, 2023

Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

Hype? Hope? Now, this subject has probably been done to death but, here I will do it all over again. Perhaps (hopefully!) my perspective will be fresh and/or of some value.

First of all, this post is inspired by The ABA Journal’s take on Social Media. As in the online magazine for lawyers. And they went on about Social Media, much like I have and others have, as well.

Hype Feeds Itself

And I can’t help feeling that that, in and of itself, is feeding the ole hype machine. Is Social Media hyped? Well, let’s put out an article about just that, and we’ll rev up the hype machine and get the word out and and and …. Suddenly, there’s hype about the hype.

Ai chihuahua.

However, there is, perhaps less of a hype issue than there is one of unrealistic expectations. I suspect that most people, if they give Social Media more than a passing glance (and, in particular, if they need to touch on it for business), take one look at it and think: free. Ooh, goody!

This marvelous free thing will supplement (and perhaps eventually supplant) all of the things I have to actually pay good money for! My wealth will increase, in an incredible and exponential manner, because I can put my advertising and marketing dollars elsewhere, outside of traditional (read: expensive) channels, and instead shove it all into some investment that catches my eye. Llama ranching, perhaps.

Traditional vs. Social Media Marketing

Okay. Let’s back up. The real thing is, Social Media marketing isn’t really an apples to apples comparison with traditional marketing. It’s more like holding a town hall meeting and seeing what people have to say about your product. Or like doing community outreach (e. g. having your company send people to work at a soup kitchen or build a house).

It’s like a million networking events. In short, it’s that dreaded, over-used term: relationship building.

And creating relationships is hard. And messy. Plus it’s not necessarily terribly free, at all.

Hype and A Sense of Entitlement

Because I have seen, in many instances, when software on a website changes. And in particular with community forums, people tend to freak out. They have a mislaid proprietary interest in a whole lotta sameness. Or they want the site to be the same from day to day, because that’s familiar to them.

Hence moving the post button from the left to the right, or changing its color, is akin to moving their cheese. So it tears at them.

But, ultimately, they figure it out. And they give it a chance and come back, and pretty soon, so far as they’re concerned things have always been the new way, and were never the old way. Because for them, it’s not about the tools; it’s about the people.

And the same thing should be true for you – and that should knock the hype right out, and for good. It’s not about the tools. It’s not about Twitter, or Facebook, or TikTok, or Groupon, or Yelp, or AirBnB, or MySpace (back in the day), or LinkedIn or StumbleUpon or Snapchat or a billion others. Instead, it’s about the people.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings Explained

… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings – in Facebook, how to do you change your account settings? When you pull down on the Account section of Facebook, you see a few choices but they change.

Keep in mind that Facebook is continuously testing its format. What worked a year ago might not work now, but these are pretty close to being right although some of the parts have moved around on the page or might now have new names.

• Privacy
† Notifications
• Account Settings
† Security and Login
• Ads
† Support Inbox, and,
• Videos

Privacy Settings

Control some aspects of the sharing experience here. So this includes who can see your photographs, religious and political views, etc.

Notifications

You can decide on which notifications you get, with separate settings for desktop and mobile. Which is rather helpful.

Account Settings

This is a part of Facebook that always seems to be changing. It is entirely possible that, by the time you read this blog post, these instructions will be obsolete. Therefore, I’ll keep everything at a high level and won’t get into too many specifics. So it is divided as follows:

† Name
• Contact
† Ad Account Contact
• Identity Confirmation

Security and Login

This section indicates if you are using Facebook Protect. It shows if you have two-factor authentication set up. You can also change your password here, and see if there have been any unauthorized login attempts.

Account Settings: Ads

This isn’t to run Facebook ads. Rather, it’s to make it clear what your preferences are. If you keep getting ads for stuff that you don’t care about—or find offensive—you can take action here. Is it a perfect system? Of course not.

But the more signals you can give Facebook about what you want, the more likely you will get an experience you love.

Support Inbox

This area is undoubtedly going to continue to evolve as questions come up and the increasingly complicated Facebook system breaks in all sorts of interesting and as-yet unexpected ways.

Here, you can see the status of anyone or anything (such as a group) you’ve reported.

You can also get to their Community Standards.

This kind of section used to have a space for questions. And it may have such a space in the future.

But keep in mind: Facebook won’t answer 99%+ of any questions you have for them. Why? Because they are running an enormous site with a surprisingly tiny number of employees. Hence many of the judgement calls come from bots.

Account Settings: Videos

In this section, you have some control over the quality and volume of videos you see on the site.

Accounts Center

All the way at the bottom (currently), click on it and you’ll be able to manage connected accounts, such as on Instagram.

And … that’s it.

For now.

Want More About Facebook?

If my experiences with Facebook resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about the largest social network on the planet, by far.

• Creating a Facebook page
† Working with a Facebook Page
• … Your Profile Page
† Home Page
• Offsite Sharing
† All Your Account Settings
• All the Rest of It
† Facebook versus Forums

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Twitter, Twitter Stream, offsite connections, visual elements, Twitter followers, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, Demystifying Twitter, metrics, verbal elements, Amazoncart debuts, Optimizing Twitter, Professionalism, metrics, verbal elements, Bruins denounce Twitter hate, Twitter bigots, lost dogs, using Twitter to track, Shift in Twitter Trends

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 10, 2022

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Are offsite connections possibly via X/Twitter? The semi-surprising answer is: yes. Because X is so bare bones, any number of applications have sprung up around it. They have come and gone over time. So, this is in order to help you manage it and become as great as you can be.

Understanding the people you tweet with is, of course, a great way to determine if offsite connections are going to be worth it. After all, offsite connections that are hundreds of miles away are not likely to be easy, cheap, or even possible.

Other Software

Here are some more sites to check out:

• HootSuite – a tweet scheduling service (and more). Here, you can track stats and import your lists.
† Social Oomph (formerly TweetLater) – time tweets and gather simple metrics on shortened urls. You can set up more than one account this way.
• Tweet Stats – a graph of, among other things, daily aggregate tweets, your most popular hours to tweet and who you retweet.
† Check out Tweepsmap – analytics and info on who unfollowed or followed you.
• Consider Twopcharts – look up clout, followers, etc.
† How about Twiends? – ways to grow followers responsibly
• Legal Birds – find lawyers on Twitter.
† Twitter Packs – find like-minded Twitter users (since this is a wiki, it depends on users to keep it up to date).

Offsite Connections: The Upshot

As X continues to mature as a business tool, I predict that more and more of these off-site services will spring up. But understand that a number of older ones from just a few years ago are gone.

The most successful one will, in my opinion, combine the best features of all. And this will be coupled with ease of use and an ability to show trends over time.

And finally, Twitter changes things almost as much and as fast as Facebook does. So keep in mind, these instructions may need some tweaking.

Oh, and if you do actually see or even meet your Twitter connections, you’ll get to see if their X profile imagery accurately reflects who they are!

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about Twitter/X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream.
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† X Verbal Elements.
• X Visual Elements
† Optimizing Twitter
• X Metrics and Timing
† Getting More Twitter Followers

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 16, 2022

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)

Verbal elements? Twitter/X is, of course, utterly verbal. It’s just about all text. But not all of that text is tweets.

One piece is the profile. There isn’t a lot of space here. The good news is that these verbal elements are searchable. If you want to make it clear that your company is green, you can put that here. Separate short messages with delimiters like pipes (|) or asterisks (*). Don’t use semicolons as they can end up being converted to code.

This is an easy section to change, so consider changing it as needed, perhaps as special events come up. Just keep track of the older wording so you can more readily recreate it if you ever need to.

Another area is the site URL. In order to be better able to track traffic coming in from Twitter, how about using a unique URL here, say, https://www.yoursite.com/twitter? That page could contain a customized welcome message to Twitter users. This is another readily editable area of Twitter, so why not switch it up as circumstances change?

This is also a useful way to help to better segment your audience. Anyone using the /twitter link is bound to have some sort of affinity with the microblogging service.

Your location is another verbal area. Of course it need not be a real place, but for a commercial Twitter account you can’t get too whimsical here.

However, if you’ve got a multi-state presence (and want to get that across but not create separate Twitter accounts for each state), there’s nothing wrong with making your location something like United States or New England or Great Lakes Region.

Verbiage: Names

Another area is the name behind the account. This is a searchable field. A company can add a tiny bit of additional information here, such as the general company location. Hence the user name could be Your Company but the name behind it could be Your Company, Cleveland.

Yet another area is the name(s) of list(s) that your company uses to follow others. Does a company need Twitter/X lists? Not necessarily, but you can still use them to make certain accounts stand out.

What about lists like customers or distributors? Perhaps not very imaginative, but these could prove useful in the future if Twitter ever makes it possible to send certain tweets only to certain lists.

Finally, although it is an issue to change it, the username is another nugget of non-tweet verbiage. Instead of changing it, what about creating a few accounts to cover different eventualities? Able2Know used to do this well (although some of these feeds are abandoned these days).

Years ago, Able2know used to split off a few feeds as follows:

† The Generic feed
• New Topics
† Popular Topics and
• Unanswered Topics.

A user could follow any or all of these and see a different slice of that site. The individual user names for the accounts make it abundantly clear which cut of the site you’re following.

But we dropped it, as automatic tweeting meant we were tweeting spam and porn before the moderating team could zap it out of existence.

Takeaways

So, what do you want to get across? I mean, really. What image do you wish to project? Peripheral information can support or obfuscate your message.

Make certain that the content and social media people (if not the entire marketing department) get a say in the wording. They may find things that you missed. Or at least they should be able to help you spot typos.

Choose what you really want your verbal elements to say. And then, say them!

Want More About Twitter AKA X and its Verbal Elements?

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Conquering Twitter (visual elements)
• Optimizing Twitter
† Conquering Twitter (metrics and timing)
† Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)
• Getting More Twitter Followers

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter

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… And Facebook for All – Your Profile Page

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 12, 2022

Life, Liberty, … And Facebook for All – Your Profile Page

It’s something Facebook members have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It’s your profile page.

Let’s talk about your profile. So, here is mine.

In addition to the basic tabs at the top, it also contains:

• A space for your profile picture
† Information on any mutual friends you might share with anyone peeking at your profile
• A small subgroup of your friends
† Your likes
• also, your photos
† Your links
• A share button, and,
† Some ads

NOTE: Facebook continually A/B tests, and so buttons and features move, change, are resized, added, or can disappear altogether. Your neighbor can sometimes see a rather different version of Facebook versus yours.

And this is normal. The largest beta tester the world has ever seen will never sit still.

But these elements have been there for quite a while. It’s a safe bet that many of these account settings will stay on your FB profile page. Although their order and names will probably change.

Let’s look at these in order.

A Space for Your Profile Picture

No one is stopping you from putting up a picture that is not, actually, of you. As a result, I’ve seen dogs on Facebook, scenery, people’s children, cartoon characters, and more. Hence it’s a place to be somewhat expressive.

However, recognize that, if you’re using Facebook at all for your business (or if you’re simply looking for work), you’ll need to tone this down.

If you want to go fairly conservative (which I personally think is best, but opinions differ), go with a headshot or a head and shoulders shot that’s fairly recent. And, do make sure you’re smiling.

Mutual Friends

If someone surfs in and finds your Profile Page, they’ll probably be drawn to whether you’re really the person they’re looking for, and whether you have any acquaintances in common.

For example, if you’ve got a somewhat common name (e. g. Gregory Cole), then it’s really going to help out people if they see anyone who you know is in common with whoever they know.

One way I’ve used this information has been in locating High School friends, as we tend to have the same mutual friends.

If I see that Jane Smith is also friends with John Jones and Dave Brown (names are made up, of course), then I realize, aha! Chances are good that Jane and I attended High School together. Or, at least, she’s from my area.

However, sometimes it just means that Jane is a local (if John and Dave stayed in the area after graduation). Or it might mean she’s a younger or older sibling of my classmates. Hence it’s an imperfect system.

A Small Subgroup of Friends

So, this is six friends (fewer, if you have fewer than six friends, of course). And it used to be you had control over this, but apparently not anymore.

As Facebook gets larger and larger, aggregations like these start to go the way of the dodo. Why? Because Facebook is really just a big, honkin’ database. Just like most of the internet, including AI, I might add.

With over 3.07 billion daily active users, all these displays, with their sorting and re-sorting, are going to get memory intensive rather quickly.

It will never, truly, be a bare bones platform a la X or Bluesky. But you can expect to see some aggregative niceties to go away over time, or to be aggregated even further.

After all, how many times have you seen only the so-called “most relevant” comments instead of all of them when you click on a post? That, my friend, is saving Facebook some valuable memory.

Your Likes

Whenever you click Like on a group or page, it can show up here. A few show up at a time, and they rotate. To take something out of rotation, un-Like it. Much older and inactive pages and groups show up less, as Facebook follows social signals in this area, too.

E. g. pages and groups that appear inactive or even downright abandoned will lose precious visibility time and space to groups and pages that are up to date and lively. FB will also sort them at the bottom of the list.

Photos on Your Profile Page

So here is where your profile picture shows up in all its glory, and bigger than on your Home Page. Therefore, make sure it looks good here as well as on your Home Page. What I said above bears repeating.

If you are using Facebook for business (or if you’re looking for work), make sure your profile image is a flattering photo clearly showing your face. It need not be full-length (and, if it is, it’ll be smaller on the Home Page, but here it’s all visible) and, for God’s sake, smile!

Plus, photographs also show up on your wall if you upload them and agree to publish them to your wall.

Wall

Up at the top, you can put in your status. There doesn’t seem to be a true limit to how long a status message can be, but after a few lines, it’s excessive. And there’s undoubtedly a limit in there somewhere. You probably can’t just upload War and Peace.

People put all sorts of nonsense in here – including not only statements of their adoration for celebrities but also mundane minutiae such as the scintillating fact that they’re about to go pick up the dry cleaning. It’s also a place where people post their political opinions.

If you want to use Facebook at all for your business, your status messages should really be short, somewhat on point and inoffensive. This is also true if you are looking for work and are not using Facebook for any of that – potential employers are watching!

Below is the wall itself, where friends can post replies to your status (they can also reply directly to the status), send you greetings, send you game requests, etc.

You can always delete or hide these messages, which can be a good idea if they are becoming something you’d rather not share with others.

You can also hide notifications from various applications so, if everyone you know is playing something like Farmville, and you don’t care about it, right-click on any Farmville notification and select the hide Farmville notifications button.

However, be aware that there are any number of similar or satellite applications, so you may be doing a rather similar task more than once. Still, understand that you don’t need to ask people to stop sending you requests. Just block the related app, whatever it may be.

The Audience for Your Profile Page

If you want to maintain at least a vestige of privacy, you can always change who receives your statuses, e.g. ‘all but ___’. However, this just stops the notification. If the person you’re excluding goes to your wall, they will still be able to see your status.

Planning a surprise party for someone? Don’t do it on your Facebook wall, mmmkay?

Info

You can add any number of tidbits here. At minimum, you should at least list your marital/dating status, your birth date (the year is optional) and your current city and/or hometown.

This will draw people in and make it easier for them to find you, particularly if you have a rather common name.

You want friends and business associates to figure out that they want you, the Mary Lou in Hicksville, New York, versus the Mary Lou in Mars, Pennsylvania.

Marital status isn’t strictly necessary (and I’ve found it doesn’t stop guys from sometimes hitting on me – eek), but I personally think it’s a nice thing to include.

However, of course, no one can force you to do this and naturally it is illegal in the United States for a potential employer to demand this information.

Birth date is kind of nice to have, partly as an identifier and partly to give another piece of information out that’s just pleasant to see. It’s a minor revelation (particularly if you only give out the month and day) and is essentially harmless.

And an American employer cannot legally ask for the year. However, employees do have to be of a certain age in order to work full-time at all.

Still, if you get that far along in a job application, an employer won’t use Facebook to confirm your age. The employer will instead use official governmental records like your birth certificate for that.

Adding your birth date also means the inevitable onslaught of Facebook birthday greetings.

Your Biography on Your Profile

Biography is optional and, if you use Facebook for business, keep it short, on point and inoffensive. Work history is also not necessary, but it can be helpful if you need for people to find you.

Are you the Mary Lou in Hicksville who worked at AIG, or at the Dairy Queen? Plus, that can add to the networking vibe. But keep in mind that Facebook for networking remains a poor substitute for a site like LinkedIn.

Educational information also helps to identify you. Graduation years are not necessary. Likes and interests will show up in part by your typing in here and also by you “liking” various pages.

Keep in mind that this can be found, so “liking” a page with a profane name is going to be something that can be picked up by potential employers and clients.

And as a corollary to that, I would say to anyone shocked by such things, chill the f*** out.

I would seriously argue that someone saying they like Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Album (personally, I prefer their earlier stuff with DLR), is a helluva lot less offensive than saying they like the KKK.

Profile Page Photos

These are pretty self-explanatory. Any photographs that you’re tagged in will show up here. You can collect photos into albums, of course. Also, if a photograph is unflattering, compromising or just plain not of you, you can always untag yourself.

Before my parents left Facebook, I was sometimes tagged on my mother’s photos so I could find them. I generally don’t mind this. My profile has enough photographs of me that it’s obvious I’m not her.

But you might mind this. So, if it happens, talk to whoever’s doing this. There are other ways of sharing photographs and albums which might suit your needs better.

And if someone shares photos of your minor child’s face without obscuring their features, feel free to complain to that person. You’ve got every right to not want (potentially) a good three billion monthly active users getting a good look at a six-year-old child.

Your Links can go on Your Profile Page

So put a link in your status, or post it to your wall, and it will convert to something clickable. And if it comes from Youtube, it’ll even embed the video. And like most things on Facebook, any link can get comments or “Likes”.

A Share Button

Actually, there are several of these. Pretty much everything on Facebook can be shared in one manner or another, and even off Facebook.

Bottom line: your Profile Page is your face to the world. It is clickable, shareable and somewhat searchable. Don’t want people to know something about you? Don’t put it on your Profile Page.

Want More About Facebook?

If my experiences with Facebook resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about the largest social network on the planet, by far.

… And Facebook for All

• Creating a Facebook page
† Working with a Facebook Page
• Offsite Sharing
† All Your Account Settings
• All the Rest of It
† Facebook versus Forums

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Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on March 24, 2022

What’s this About Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift?

Dahling, you need a facelift! This post is a riff on an old article from Social Media Today: 6 Tips for giving your LinkedIn profile a facelift.

I liked this article and recognize that it was designed to be a straightforward beginner’s set of tips, but there is more that could be done. There usually is.

Use a Profile Photograph

I absolutely agree. I realize there are people who are shy or who feel that they don’t photograph well. But the truth is, most of us on LinkedIn don’t care.

Unless you are looking for a modeling or an acting gig, your appearance does not and should not matter. That is, so long as you are neat and presentable, and are in business attire. Head shots and images up to about the middle of your chest are best. You don’t need a full-length body shot.

I also think that keeping a picture off your profile because you don’t want to reveal your race, gender or age is somewhat wrongheaded. After all, what are you going to do if you actually get an interview with a company (and not necessarily directly through LinkedIn)?

Send a proxy in your stead, a la Cyrano de Bergerac? That’s kinda silly, dontcha think?

As for me, people online are going to figure out that I am female, they will get a pretty good handle on my age and my religion and if they look a bit, they’ll even see pictures of me when I weighed nearly 350 pounds. And I embrace those things and don’t try to hide them. Your ideas may differ, but I don’t, personally, see the value in hiding such things.

And if an employer is going to pass me by because I’m no longer 21, or not Asian, or too short or whatever, then I don’t want to work for that employer, anyway. And… that’s probably illegal, anyway.

Use a Vanity URL

On LinkedIn, you can get them to make you a specific URL for your profile, rather than just accept the computer-generated one. Not surprisingly, I think this is a great idea. This happens to be mine. You can get a bit of an SEO bounce if you use a vanity URL. It is easy and it is free, and it is considerably more memorable.

Plus, if you wish, it’s a good thing to put on a business card or a resume, or even into a signature line in email.

For a Facelift, Use a Headline

Personally, I find these weird, but that may be just me. For me, just my job title seems to be fine, as it evokes (currently) not only what I do but the industry I am in right now. I’ve always, personally, found that titles like Terrific Social Media Manager or Experienced Fry Cook just seem odd. But that may be me.

Try it—but I’d recommend doing so as a more or less controlled experiment. If it’s not working after, say, six months, I recommend rethinking it.

Update Your Email Settings

If you’re open to receiving job openings, make sure that your profile says so. And if not, make sure you say that instead. People won’t necessarily follow your requirements in this area, but some will. And it can serve as an indirect means of indicating you might be interested in making a move if the timing and the circumstances were right.

Make Your Profile Public

Personally, I think that the only time your profile should be private is in the first five seconds after you’ve created it. Then again, I have had an online persona since 1997, and find it easy to share a lot of things.

Of course not everyone feels this way, but it seems to be kind of useless to have a LinkedIn profile if you don’t want to share it with anyone. Networking, which is what LinkedIn is all about, is, in part, about going outside your comfort zone and meeting new people. This is not like Facebook where, potentially, the pictures of you drinking in 1963 could come back to haunt you.

This is a gathering of professionals. Any employer upset if you have an online presence on LinkedIn is not only not with the times. They are being thoroughly unrealistic. Employees look for better opportunities all the time. Wise employers recognize and accept that. Denying someone access to LinkedIn, or being upset by an employee’s presence therein, is misplaced.

So go out there and fix your profile! And give it a facelift!

Want More About the Conquest of LinkedIn?

If my experiences with LinkedIn resonate with you, then check out my other articles about the largest networking site on the planet.

What LinkedIn Has to Offer

• Your Profile Page
† Your Resume
• Meeting Offline
† Your Network
• Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift
† Last Little Bits
• InMaps – Visualize Your Network on LinkedIn

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The Conquest of LinkedIn – Meeting Offline

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on October 5, 2021

The Conquest of LinkedIn – Meeting Offline

Meeting Offline. Oh. My. God. You want me to do what?!??!

Go offline. Yes, I really and truly want you to do this. I want you to go out and meet real-live, honest to goodness human beings. You know, members of your own species.

But, but, but, I hear you saying, why am I on on online networking site in the first place? Isn’t it to build a network online?

Well, sure it is. But nowhere in there is the word only living. Online, yes. But not exclusively there.

Not by a long shot.

Traditional vs. New-Style Networking

Traditional networking involves fairly formalized, ritualized meetings between job seekers and employees of companies where the job seekers wish to work.

Here’s the drill: the job seeker gets an introduction via a friend, or a friend of a friend, and goes to the contact’s office. The job seeker brings his or her resume and the two of them chat, maybe for a half an hour or so.

And the job seeker leaves the resume and, if he or she is good at follow up, sends a nice thank-you note. The contact may or may not respond, promising to get in touch if something comes up, or if the contact thinks of someone else for the job seeker to talk to.

And the cycle either continues, or it dies on the vine. And so it goes.

LinkedIn Changes That

With LinkedIn, the drill differs. Here is what I found to be helpful. Your mileage may vary, or you may come up with something else. So, instead,

1. You find a person you want to meet. They may be in your industry, or an industry you want to get into. Or they are in a company where you think you’d like to work. Make sure they are close enough to you that getting together is feasible.

2. And you ask them to link to you.

3. You do this with about 19 other people – this is a numbers game, and not everyone will say yes. My experience has been, out of over 200 of these, only one person has flat out said no.

However, over half either ignored my link request or just never got around to it.

I have even met some of these people under other circumstances – it’s often not hostility that keeps them from linking to me, it’s that they are busy and processing far too much information at any given one time.

So, give yourself better odds. Mine have been about 45% have said yes to the link request.

4. Someone says yes. Great! Send them a note, saying something like,

Thank you for linking with me. Would it be possible to meet briefly for coffee? I am interested in going into ___/working at ___ company/working as a ____ and can see that you have done that, and I hope that you have a few tips you can share. Thanks!

5. Repeat this with anyone else who’s agreed to link with you, pursuant to your initial request. My experience has been that, out of the people who linked to me, I contacted about 55% of them to ask them to coffee.

For the others, I realized they were either too geographically remote or they let me know they could link but were busy, e. g. they were new parents.

And then, out of that group, about 25% of those actually got as far as scheduled meetings. Hence my success rate was that I met with about 6% of the people I initially wrote to.

6. So block off an hour or two, but tell your guest that you only want 20 minutes of their time. Hence that way, if the meeting goes over, you’re covered.

Yet More!

7. Don’t bring your resume! Instead, bring either a laptop or your smartphone or a pen and paper. And bring a paper list of companies you’re targeting. Because if the conversation flags, you can always ask your guest what he or she thinks of those companies, or if your guest knows anyone at any of them.
8. Furthermore, have your guest select the date, time and place. In addition, give a couple of choices of dates or places for meeting offline, if your guest is having trouble deciding and
9. Offer to pay for coffee. Even if you’ve been out of work for a long time, most people are sensitive enough, and realize you’re probably watching your funds. However, you must ask.

Meeting Offline Specifics

As for the meeting itself, make it whatever you want it to be. And if the conversation flags, remember it’s only 20 minutes out of your life.

So you can always claim a prior appointment. However, if the conversation goes well, be sensitive to your guest’s time – just ask – do you need to go? And then just follow their lead.

So follow up with a thank-you email, and send a note every few months or so, to maintain the connection. Just send along an article or blog post that you think that your guest might enjoy.

And it is also a courtesy – although not strictly necessary – to follow them on X and/or read and comment on their blog, if any.

So will it work? It can. I did not meet with a lot of people in terms of percentages. However, the people I met with gave me very good information, and introduced me to others (or informed me of upcoming events) which helped me out even more.

And it also was incredibly helpful to me in my work, as I had a good, strong network to draw on when we had events and needed to fill a room.

This kind of activity will certainly get you out and about, and give you exposure to people in your current or future field. Finally, meeting offline counts as making a job contact for virtually any Department of Unemployment.

There, now, meeting offline wasn’t so bad, was it?

Want More About the Conquest of LinkedIn?

If my experiences with LinkedIn resonate with you, then check out my other articles about the largest networking site on the planet.

What LinkedIn Has to Offer

• Your Profile Page
† Your Resume
• Meeting Offline
† Your Network
• Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift
† Last Little Bits
• InMaps – Visualize Your Network on LinkedIn

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… And Facebook for All — Company Pages

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 5, 2021

Liberty, Justice (?), … And Facebook for All – Company Pages for Writers/Authors

Company pages have become spots you put together on Facebook to support a business (not the same as a fan page). These have gotten more corporate recently. For a writer, this is what you’re currently dealing with.

For other types of companies, you’ll need to open them up and do some experimenting.

Also, like everything else on Facebook, these pages and their settings do evolve, and they’ve gotten simpler these days. Currently, the following features are available for fans. Let’s start with the main tab.

Main Tab (Posts)

• Intro
† Page type (author, etc.)
• Location
† URL (which you can click on to promote your website, for a fee, of course!)
• Ratings, if any
† Photos
• Posts (under each post, there’s a button to boost that post)

About Tab

Now for the About tab.
† Contact and basic info
• Page transparency
† Details
• Categories
† Contact Info
• Websites and Social Links
† Basic Info

Within the About tab, there are subtabs. The main such tab includes followers in the first . section.

Followers Subsection

Followers has tabs for Followers, Following, Mutual Following, and Likes.

Photos Subsection

The next section is Photos and just includes tabs for Photos and Albums.

Videos Subsection

The only thing in this subsection is, unsurprisingly, videos.

Two More Subsections

These are just Groups and Likes.

Mentions Tab

This tab is just for whenever anyone has contacted or tagged you. Do yourself a favor, and look at it on occasion, as it can sometimes become a spam magnet.

Reviews Tab

This one only contains reviews, if any.

Followers Tab

This is really just another way to get to the aforementioned Followers subsection (under the About tab). Followers has tabs for Followers, Following, Mutual Following, and Likes.

Photos Tab

This is really just another way to get to the aforementioned Photos subsection (under the About tab). Photos just includes tabs for Photos and Albums.

More (with a down arrow)

Currently, this tab provides ways to get to:

• Videos (same as the aforementioned Videos subsection under the About tab)
† Live (live videos go here)
• Groups (same as the subsection under the About tab)
† Music
• Check-ins
† Sports
• Movies
† TV Shows
• Books
† Likes
• Reviews Given

Also, there’s…

There are also a Shop Now button (which you need to set up), a Like Button, and a Button to Message the page owner.

As you may imagine, things are different for the owner/admin. So, switch on over to that account (which I believe is made when you make the page), and let’s take a fresh look.

There’s a spot for Page Health, where Facebook will tell you if there’s anything glaring that you need to do. Just under that, you can invite friends to Like your page. Don’t go nuts with this! Too much of this form of self-promotion can actively harm your brand.

Also, you can edit the intro/bio or other details like URL. And, you can feature any of your photos, or upload something new and feature that. There’s room for more than one featured photo.

Posts

Over by your posts, there are options for a live video, a reel (you can just upload a preexisting one), and adding a photo or video. You can feature (pin) a post, too.

Under each post, you can click for insights. Click on it, and you’ll see views (followers vs non-followers), reach, interactions, link clicks, views, and interactions. Interactions include likes, reactions, shares, and saves.

† *
• *

Company Pages and Details

For every tab and section which a fan can see, there’s a way to edit it. In addition, you can adjust privacy settings for each such section.**

Events

I’ve found adding events to be hit or miss. First of all, not everyone RSVPs, and not everyone shows up even if they’ve said yes. However, it provides more exposure and it will bring your page up to people as the event date rolls around.

Because even people who are clicking “No” are still looking, at least a little bit. So use with discretion and don’t overdo this. Because not every activity is an event, and not everyone should be invited to everything. Since that’s just plain annoying.

Wall

Fairly self-explanatory. In addition, you can control who can add to your wall. However, keep in mind that if you are free and easy with this, you’ll get more posts but you might also get spam. Although if you shut this down, you end up with Posts to Page. And it’s easy to miss these!

Company Pages Info

Here you add more detailed information. Hence this includes the company’s address and its business hours.

Photos

Fairly self-explanatory. Posts with images nearly always do better than those without, so upload an image if the link you’re sharing doesn’t have one. Make sure you have permission to use the image!

Notes

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence add notes like you would on your own personal page. E. g. these are almost discussions. However, the responses are relegated to subordinate comments versus the kind of back and forth that comes from the wall or the discussions page. And this is, admittedly, a nitpicky distinction without much of a real difference.

I would, though, suggest that you not use the Notes section for blogging. Instead, get a blog through WordPress (yay!) or the like and do it that way. Because the Notes section ends up a rather poor substitute for that.

Videos

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence if you’ve got videos uploaded, they can show up here. However, this is not the same as linking to a video hosted online elsewhere.

Company Pages: Post Scheduling

Fairly self-explanatory. So just post to your wall but pull down on the post button and select Schedule Post. In addition, if you’ve been looking at your Insights, you should know when people are online. And of course you want to try to post when people will see your posts.

Various Apps

Finally, go to Edit Profile and there is an option for Applications. However, these days, the only ones are Notes and Events.

Want More About Facebook?

If my experiences with Facebook resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about the largest social network on the planet, by far.

… And Facebook for All

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Tag: community

Risks of a Community Without Management

Let’s Look at The Risks of Having a Community Without Management

Ghost Town

Land of 1,000 Flowers

Drama Central Without Management

A Circling Storm

A Clique Without Management

Light Touch with Management

Years Later…

Want More About Community Management?

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… And Facebook for All – Your Profile Page

Life, Liberty, … And Facebook for All – Your Profile Page

A Space for Your Profile Picture

Mutual Friends

A Small Subgroup of Friends

Your Likes

Photos on Your Profile Page

Wall

The Audience for Your Profile Page

Info

Your Biography on Your Profile

Profile Page Photos

Your Links can go on Your Profile Page

A Share Button

Want More About Facebook?

… And Facebook for All

Like this:

Tag: community

So, What Do You Look Like Online?

My Own Information—What I Look Like Online

Another Angle

How Accurate is the Information?

But…

Clean Up Your Presence

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Let’s Look at The Risks of Having a Community Without Management

Ghost Town

Land of 1,000 Flowers

Drama Central Without Management

A Circling Storm

A Clique Without Management

Light Touch with Management

Years Later…

Want More About Community Management?

Share this:

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Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

Hype Feeds Itself

Traditional vs. Social Media Marketing

Hype and A Sense of Entitlement

Want More About Social Media?

Social Media in Our Society

Reviews of Books on Social Media

Working with Social Media

Social Media for Writers

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… And Facebook for All – Your Account Settings Explained

Privacy Settings

Notifications

Account Settings

Security and Login

Account Settings: Ads

Support Inbox

Account Settings: Videos

Accounts Center

Want More About Facebook?

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (offsite connections)

Other Software

Offsite Connections: The Upshot

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

Almost Everything But the Tweet

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Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (verbal elements)

Verbiage: Names

Takeaways

Want More About Twitter AKA X and its Verbal Elements?

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Life, Liberty, … And Facebook for All – Your Profile Page

A Space for Your Profile Picture

Mutual Friends

A Small Subgroup of Friends

Your Likes

Photos on Your Profile Page

Wall

The Audience for Your Profile Page

Info

Your Biography on Your Profile

Profile Page Photos

Your Links can go on Your Profile Page

A Share Button

Want More About Facebook?

… And Facebook for All

Share this:

Like this:

What’s this About Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift?

Use a Profile Photograph

Use a Vanity URL

For a Facelift, Use a Headline

Update Your Email Settings

Make Your Profile Public

Want More About the Conquest of LinkedIn?