Blog
Social MediaAsk Meghan: Time to check Facebook privacy settings again
Question: Facebook recently made changes to the profile pages and I wondered if you know how to change it back? I should have let it go but didn’t realize it was permanent! Any ideas?
Answer: If history has taught us anything, Facebook won’t let us go back to the previous look so we’ll have to learn to work with it. If your profile tab on Facebook hasn’t been updated yet, it will soon. You’ll receive a pop-up notice that looks like the image below:
Even if you say no to linking these pages to your profile, Facebook will be persistent until you do so. When I say pages, I don’t mean the fan pages that you are used to. These pages are called Community Pages. According to Facebook’s blog, “Community Pages are a new type of Facebook Page dedicated to a topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it. Just like official Pages for businesses, organizations and public figures, Community Pages let you connect with others who share similar interests and experiences.”
What I found personally alarming about this was when I allowed my profile to link to these Community Pages, it automatically created one for my specific job title, E-Communications Specialist at PA Association of REALTORS®. As the only person with this title, there’s no reason for a Community Page. The upside of this is I removed my job title and it disappeared but the downside meant Facebook wouldn’t just let me unlink it and I had to remove my title.
The profile also created a Community Page for PAR but since we already have a fan page, this isn’t necessary. From a marketing standpoint, every brand should have control over its own identity. Making a PAR Community Page that gives other people Wikipedia-type control over our brand isn’t an ideal situation.
These new changes mean it’s time to check your privacy settings again. Under Account/Privacy Settings, go through each section (you will also see a new section called “Friends, Tags and Connections”) and make sure your settings are set to the way you want them to be. Personally most of mine are set to “Only Friends.” The only two I have set differently are under Contact Information – Add me as a friend and Send me a message. I have these set to Everyone.
The other privacy setting which is new is under Applications and Websites. The last one should say “Instant Personalization Pilot Program: Control how select partners can personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.” This setting was announced a few weeks ago and you’ve probably seen Facebook’s “like” option on other sites like CNN.com and our own PARJustListed.com. This new feature allows you to like or recommend a story on other sites and it posts a link back on your Facebook page. If you don’t want this to be enabled, then uncheck the box at the bottom of that screen.
Do you have a social media question? Ask Meghan by filling out this form.
|
Meghan Tinkham is the Community Manager at the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors®. Follow her on Twitter @PAR_Meg. |
Related posts:
Print This Article
Great information. It might be a good idea to repeat this article every few weeks or so.
Meghan–this is such great information. Just had a conversation with a “techie” friend yesterday about the changes FB has made. I did look at mine a few days ago but am going there again with your comments and instructions. THANKS again for timely and “right on” info.
I am fast becoming more than leery about this “wonderful” Facebook marketing tool. Since setting up my Facebook account I have had 4 links that led to viruses from very unsuspecting friends. Now a local agent had her hotmail email hacked and the password was changed and it just happened to have changed her Facebook password as well. I have also read the posts that in the very near future Facebook will introduce a monthly fee. Enough already. I feel they have a little more control than I would like.