I don’t share my vacation pictures with everyone I know in real life so why do it in the social world? Jason would not have shared this picture with everyone in our office but it was out of his hands.  If you believe in complete transparency online, then this is not the post for you.  For the rest of you out there, this post will help show you how to manage your Facebook profile so you share only what you want to share with each of your friends.

Step 1: Login into Facebook and click on Settings -> Privacy Settings (it is in the top right).

Step 2: Click on Profile.  From here you can control who can see what on your profile.  The default setting allows your friends and those in your network to see almost everything.  For most of us, one of our networks includes the city we live in.  This means anyone in your city can see your full profile include pictures, videos and more.  If you want to specify exactly who can and cannot see your photos for example, in the drop down menu next to Photos Tagged of You click Customize… From this pop up you can select the option Some Friends and then list each friend you want to be able to see your pictures.

Step 3: Go back to the Privacy Settings page and click on Search.  This page allows you to control who can find you via the search feature in Facebook.  It is also automatically configured to create a public profile that can be found by search engines.

Step 4: Go back to the Privacy Settings page and click on News Feed and Wall.  Here you can choose what stories are published to your news feed to be seen by your friends.  There is a second tab on this page called Social Ads.  Click there and you can choose whether or not you want to appear in social ads.  Social ads are those that pair your profile picture with an application you use or page that you are a fan of.  By default, these will only be seen by your friends.

Step 4: Go back to the Privacy Settings page and click on Applications.  The page that you will see shows how applications interact with your information.  If you click on the second tab, Settings, you can control what informaton can be seen by your friends through applications they use.

Step 5: Go back to the Privacy Settings page.  The final option available is to Block People.  I only friend people I know, so I have never had to use this feature, but it is nice to know it is there if I ever do need it.  Feels a little like a virtual restraining order.

I love that Facebook allows us to easily share pictures and what is going on in our lives.  Without Facebook, everyone wouldn’t be able to see me hanging out with David Meerman Scott.  However, I like being able to maintain some privacy online.  This guy could have avoided being called a fairy.  Would your boss be so cool?