We all have this same situation, we have "friends" on FB that fall into
different categories.
1. Family/Close Friends
2. Friends
3. Co-Workers
4. HS/College Friends
5. People i friended just to be nice.
6. etc. etc. etc.
The biggest concern in this day and age is with privacy, who see's what.
There are many ways to lock down your profile on facebook. I have chose to split
people into "LISTS" that allow me then to limit what they can/cant see. It has
helped me a lot in knowing when i post something about a trip or being out of
town, that i know its going to people who i know IRL (in Real Life) and not
people that i just friended to be polite. I have broken it down as follows.
LISTS
In facebook click on ACCOUNT then EDIT FRIENDS:
On the far left you will see your friends groups (lists) then you will see all
your friends listed in the middle of the page.
If you look at the image below you will see the 3 lists i use.
List 1 - Close Friends/ Family
These people can see everything i post, photos, notes, links, phone #, etc. Anything and everything is open to them.
List 2 - What i call "Wall only"
These people can see my wall posts only, and some limited photos, These are people i know, but not people who i want seeing every photo i post, or phone number, etc. I would say these are like my Highschool friends, and some co-workers. I want them to think I'm not doing much on facebook.
List 3 - See NOTHING
These are the people i have friended but i dont really want them to know where i am, or what im doing.
Creating a List
On the EDIT FRIENDS PAGE look for the "Create A List" button (see image)
list (see Left)
Enter the name of the list you want to create: 1. Close Friends - See
ALL - i use the 1. to keep the list in order.
Once you put in the list name you can then select the people you want to be
in that list (just click their names) they will change color and get a check
mark in their photo.
Once you are done selecting people for your list click on the "CREATE LIST"
button at the bottom of the popup window.
PRIVACY SETTINGS
Ok, now comes the FUN part (ok not really, but im trying here), you need to go into ACCOUNT / PRIVACY SETTINGS (see img on right).
This is where you will have to make some decisions for yourself. What do you want people to see in each group, etc.
I will show how i have mine setup, you can copy it or change it any way you want.
If you look at the shot below you will see mine is set to "CUSTOM" for everything.
I'm sure yours will look different.
Click the "Customize Settings" at the bottom. You will see a list of your settings, here are just a few of mine, but i think you will get the idea pretty fast. For example, the top one is "Posts by me", This contains, Posts, Status updates, Photos, etc.
You can see the top one, where i have CLICKED and the list it shows, from this drop down, click on "Custom edit"
Once on the edit screen, you see 2 sections "Make this visible to" and "Hide this from". Its pretty straight forward.
Pick the list at the top that makes sense (everything i have starts with "firends only" so this way its hiding EVERYTHING from the rest of the world. So if we dont want people in list 3 to see any of my updates/posts/phots we "HIDE" that list.
Once you start typing you can see it finds the list that matches. You can have multiple lists of people selected to HIDE things from.
Once you have picked the right lists, click SAVE SETTINGS.
Now the hard part. You have to do this for EVERY setting you want to limit viewing.
The image below shows how i have my PHONE settings, I have seen a LOT about
your phone # being "avail to the world" on FB, and it is, unless you use
settings like i have setup.
The key to all of this is making sure EVERYONE in your friends list is on one of these 3 lists; (See all) (Wall only) (see nothing).
TESTING THINGS OUT:
One of the great features of facebook is that you can look at your profile as others would see it. IE If someone on the "wall only" list looks at my profile what do they see?
At the very top of the page we were just on "Customize Settings", there is a button called "Preview my Profile", click it.
Once you get to this page you will see a page like the image below:
You can see here this is what "the world" sees when they visit my page, they get so much info. My profile pic, the fact I'm Male, and then a link to the page they are already on. If you want to see how a person on the "wall only" group sees your page, type in a name in the box (see below) and the page will change to show what that person can/cant see of your page.
You can see this person can see some photos, but nothing on my "wall" they can also see some basic info:
You can contiue to put in peoples names and see what it looks like to others. Then go back and make changes to your settings untill your happy with who can see what. The main thing is to make sure you have looked at ALL your Privacy Settings, and to check them about once every other month, as FB loves to add new ones, or to change them.
Hope this helps,
David
