I'm going to assume that all of the interns or college students reading this are familiar with social networking sites- if you're not, you should be.

Not only are sites like Facebook and Twitter great for keeping up with friends and satisfying your inner-narcissist, but they are also great tools for promoting yourself and networking with professional contacts.

My personal advice for anyone using social networking sites is simply- BE SMART!

I have too many friends who use their Facebook accounts to post drunken pictures of themselves and their friends for the whole world to see.  Now I have to admit- at one point in time I might have been pretty lax about what all I posted on my Facebook page, but I have since changed my ways.

When I started working and doing internships I found out that the majority of people I worked with were on Facebook too, and I was 99% sure they weren't interested in seeing pictures of my friends doing keg-stands last weekend.

When they added me I was faced with the dilemma- do I deny them and lose a chance to network or accept their invitation and give them full access to my personal information?

My decision?  Add them (who wants to pass up a good networking opportunity?), but get familiar with Facebook's privacy controls so I decide who sees what on my profile.

General Privacy Settings

If you don't take advantage of the privacy settings, you're not making a very smart decision.  Seriously- there are so many creeps on the web; why would you want to inadvertently give a stranger info like your full name, birthday, what you're doing right now, etc.?

Wising up is as simple as logging onto Facebook, clicking on "Account", then "Privacy Settings", and customizing away (I would recommend at least making everything "Friends Only").

Congratulations- you're one step closer to gaining yourself some privacy.



Limited Profile List

After a nightmare of a situation during one of my internships where one of my coworkers had a habit of telling my boss virtually everything I posted on Facebook, sometimes in front of me, (even if my posts weren't inappropriate, it was still awkward) I learned to use the Limited Profile Friends List ASAP, and have never looked back.

At first, it was a pain; I went through all of my existing friends and placed on the list anyone who I knew through work, politics, or other professional settings (oh, and family members- ugh everyone is on Facebook these days).

I then changed my privacy settings so that people on my Limited Profile Friends List didn't have access to my pictures, my status updates, and things my friends posted on my wall; basically my professional contacts can only information that is also available on my resume.

To create your own Limited Profile Friends List, go to "Account", "Edit Friends", and "Create New List".  Then, when you go into your "Privacy Settings" (like I described above) you can customize the settings so your Limited Profile can/can't see certain things on your profile.



Now you can still post drunken pictures and post crazy status updates and only your actual friends can see them!  Genius, right?

(On a side note, I would personally recommend not posting any pictures that might be construed as inappropriate because it's really not that cool and can still get to the wrong people, but... to each their own.)

Just use your head and think twice before posting or allowing other people to post something on your page- your boss could be watching!