Well If you would have asked me back in September if I would have ever logged in to Facebook.com I would have told you NO WAY.  

I even went as far as to block (using www.opendns.org) all social media except twitter.com from both my office and home. 

December 20, 2008  I cautiously and quietly signed up for Facebook.com

Yes, it has been fun and a way to connect with many people of the past and get to know others that I see infrequently.  Especially those that I know from afar from insurance trade related functions.

I went as far as creating facebook.com fan pages for our family insurance business Vaughn Insurance and our family owned Bed & Breakfast, L&N Bed and Breakfast.

Some basic tips that I have found helpful:

1. When Facebook.com asks for your birthday choose “don’t show year”.  I say this not because I don’t want others to know how old I am, but I feel that is a piece of personal information that others may not need to know.  This is one piece of ‘Personal identity” that could accelerate identity theft.

2. Check your privacy settings- I only show my information, friends, pictures with people whom I choose to be my friends.

3. Check your notification settings.  I have chosen to remove all email notifications.  I don’t need anymore emails than I already have been coming to my email account.

4. If you are uncomfortable about someone being your friend just ignore.  They don’t get any notification that you did not friend them.   Always remember that Facebook.com *requires* you to represent yourself as you really are not some vanity name.   No more screen like “hothousewife312” like AOL allowed us to do in the early years of web 1.0!

5. I never accept anything other than friends and sometimes events.  If you send me a birthday request, a cause or any other third party application inside of Facebook.com more than likely I will ignore.  The reason is that it junks up your wall and downloads cookies and possible spyware on your local workstation.

A few of my co-workers are on facebook.   My father Norris Priest is on facebook.

Honestly, I really don’t know what I think about facebook.com- I like twitter.com better!  You can follow me at www.twitter.com/nibbyp

What are some tips you have about using facebook.com?

Are you using Facebook.com for business purposes? 

Do you think companies and small business should encourage their staff to use social media responsible in the workplace?