Getting Ready for Graph Search on Facebook:

Getting Ready for Graph Search on Facebook: Privacy Part 2

The Timeline and Tagging features of Facebook will become even more important once Graph Search is made widely available. What Graph Search is able to see will depend on what relationship the user has with you through Facebook (public, friend or friend of friend) and on the settings of your Facebook Account.

Let’s take a look at the settings that you can change on your Facebook Account to take control of what people will find.

After you log in to Facebook, left click on the little white Gear icon to the right of your name and the word "Home" in the blue bar at the top of the main screen. Then, left click on “Account Settings”.

When the screen changes, left click on “Timeline and Tagging” on the left side of the screen under the word “General”.

Who can add things to my Timeline?

“Who can post on your Timeline?” think about how you view the role of Facebook in your life. The more publicly accessible you make your Facebook page, the more interactive it will be. But on the other hand, whatever is posted on your Facebook Wall and Timeline reflects on what the viewer’s think of you as well, so you may want to exercise some control over it.

"Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline?", I would recommend setting this to “On” or “Enabled” regardless of what you set the previous setting to. It is always a good idea to see what people are tagging or pointing out your presence in before it appears on your Timeline. You can then decide if you want it to appear on your Facebook page. You can also click on the name of the person posting the item to ask them to not post the thing at all if it is something you don’t want anyone to see. Or, you might find that you really like the item being posted and want to leave a comment about it that everyone will see. When customers start posting pictures tagging you and your business in a positive way on Facebook, you simply can’t buy that kind of publicity, so you want to encourage that.

Who can see things on my Timeline?

“Review what other people see on your Timeline”. is not so much a setting as it is a handy tool to let you see what your Facebook Timeline looks like when other people click on your name on Facebook. Are you projecting the image on here that you want to be showing? If not, a social media manager can help you make changes to what you post and how it is seen so that you put your best face forward to potential and current business partners.

Who can see posts you’ve been tagged in on your Timeline? you have an opportunity to customize your ‘newsletter’ so that it is more public or more private depending on what you want others to see about you. If you click on “Custom”, you can even specify which people can and can’t see these tagged posts.

Who can see what others post on your Timeline? you can allow people to post on your Timeline in the setting above and still have some control over what is seen. If you want to let certain people post on your Timeline but you don’t want everyone to see what they wrote, you can adjust that here.

How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?

Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook? I highly recommend setting this to “On” or “Enabled”. Being able to comment and tag other people’s posts is part of the interaction of Facebook, but it is still a good idea to see what they are saying and tagging to make sure you approve of it.

When you're tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience if they aren't already in it? set this to “Friends” unless you are concerned about the privacy of yourself and others in the pictures, then set it to “Only Me”.

Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded? This is an excellent opportunity to either get yourself mentioned on Facebook more or to cut down on tags of you. If you change the setting to “no one”, then Facebook won’t suggest that the people uploading the pictures put a tag of you on the picture. It doesn’t mean that the person won’t tag you in the picture, but it does mean that Facebook won’t remind them to.

Changing these settings will help to make you either more or less findable on Graph Search. If you have a business, Graph Search could dramatically increase your visibility on Facebook. Contact Tufel Media for help with making your Facebook Timeline into something that encourages people to interact with you and your business.