Facebook Tips | Nibby Priest -Life On Purpose

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?

Erik says

March 15, 2009 at 8:01 pm

Good post Nibby – like you, I stayed away from FB because I thought it was just another MySpace, which I did NOT like.

However, it has been fun to reconnect with old classmates and friends, but also people that are more recent friends, but that I might not normally have time to socialize with and learn more about. I think FB is great for this. I try to keep FB separate from work, with the few exceptions (you being one). It is usually a totally different set of friends between the 3 services. My conversations are generally a lot different between FB (more family related), Twitter (Geek and Techy, and other side interests), and LinkedIN (networking with business peers).

Companies should post terms of use for employees, but I think outright blocking them is short sighted. There is a whole new generation coming into the workforce that have grown up being ‘connected’, companies operating that way will be viewed as behind the times, and good talent will go elsewhere.

I think a lot of companies and agencies in the Insurance Industry still think of the Internet in that mindset. But they are not alone, the Legal profession is another that still has this ‘old school’ way of thinking.

What I would like –
I would LOVE to find a local agency that leverages the latest technology to communicate with me. A few months ago I was searching for a new agency and I could not find one that had a decent website. They all seemed to be a template copy of each other, and required me to call them for any information. There are many people just like me that don’t operate that way anymore. I want to do everything online at my own convenience. I think FB, Twitter, and some of the other services provide a very inexpensive way for agencies to tell me about themselves. Which is what I’m looking for. I can then decide who I think would be the best fit for me. The more services they can provide to me without having to place a call to them the better, which in turn will free up their CSR’s for other tasks.

How does this benefit your agency –
If your an agent you might be thinking “If they never call in how can I sell them other products?”. I think this is where Social Media can be a HUGE benefit for agencies. If your customers are following you on FB and/or fans of your page, you can see what is happening in their live without having to place a call to them, and take time out of their day (or yours). You can see if they just purchased a boat, or if a friend of theirs did, are they having a new addition to their family, buying rental property, etc, etc…

This is the part agencies need to think about with Social Media. The initial phase of getting started might seem steep (as far as time is concerned) but once you build up your network, I think that is where the value really comes in.

Comments

Erik says

March 15, 2009 at 8:01 pm

Good post Nibby – like you, I stayed away from FB because I thought it was just another MySpace, which I did NOT like.

However, it has been fun to reconnect with old classmates and friends, but also people that are more recent friends, but that I might not normally have time to socialize with and learn more about. I think FB is great for this. I try to keep FB separate from work, with the few exceptions (you being one). It is usually a totally different set of friends between the 3 services. My conversations are generally a lot different between FB (more family related), Twitter (Geek and Techy, and other side interests), and LinkedIN (networking with business peers).

Companies should post terms of use for employees, but I think outright blocking them is short sighted. There is a whole new generation coming into the workforce that have grown up being ‘connected’, companies operating that way will be viewed as behind the times, and good talent will go elsewhere.

I think a lot of companies and agencies in the Insurance Industry still think of the Internet in that mindset. But they are not alone, the Legal profession is another that still has this ‘old school’ way of thinking.

What I would like –
I would LOVE to find a local agency that leverages the latest technology to communicate with me. A few months ago I was searching for a new agency and I could not find one that had a decent website. They all seemed to be a template copy of each other, and required me to call them for any information. There are many people just like me that don’t operate that way anymore. I want to do everything online at my own convenience. I think FB, Twitter, and some of the other services provide a very inexpensive way for agencies to tell me about themselves. Which is what I’m looking for. I can then decide who I think would be the best fit for me. The more services they can provide to me without having to place a call to them the better, which in turn will free up their CSR’s for other tasks.

How does this benefit your agency –
If your an agent you might be thinking “If they never call in how can I sell them other products?”. I think this is where Social Media can be a HUGE benefit for agencies. If your customers are following you on FB and/or fans of your page, you can see what is happening in their live without having to place a call to them, and take time out of their day (or yours). You can see if they just purchased a boat, or if a friend of theirs did, are they having a new addition to their family, buying rental property, etc, etc…

This is the part agencies need to think about with Social Media. The initial phase of getting started might seem steep (as far as time is concerned) but once you build up your network, I think that is where the value really comes in.