getting started with facebook for journalists

Your Facebook profile serves two main purposes. First it enables other Facebook users to find you. Your high school friends can find you if you enter your high school and graduating year. This may or may not be a good thing.

The second main purpose of your profile is to keep your friends informed about your activities. In addition to your basic information, your profile is where you publish information about yourself. 

An easy first step in setting up your profile is to add a picture of yourself.

Click the Upload a Picture option to upload a picture from your computer or click the Take a Picture option to use a camera connected to your computer to take a picture.

After you add the profile picture, click Edit Information. This will bring up four categories of information: Basic Information; Personal Information; Contact Information; and Education and Work.

Edit each of these information categories. The following images show the information that I suggest you share to begin using Facebook. Of course you can add or remove information at any time.

Basic information.

Personal Information is the next category. There is little risk in letting your friends and readers know what about your favorite TV show or book. Add information that you are comfortable sharing. You are not obligated to enter any information.

Here's the Contact Information section. Seriously consider if you want to post detailed contact information about yourself online. If you have a different email you want to publish, or if you wish to remove your email from your Facebook profile, this is the place.

The Education and Work section offers some benefits as well as exposure. For example, by specifying that I work at the University of California I will be able to join the UC Facebook Network. This may make it easier to find and contact individuals about stories related to the UC system. The exposure of education information may make it easier to find sensitive identity information through other sources.

How do you decide what to post? You want some people to see a lot of information, but most people to see a small subset of information about you.  It's time to talk about Facebook Friends and Friends Lists.