Networking Reviews - Facebook
Facebook is one of the biggest players in the social marketing scene right now, and with good reason. If you’re a college student you’ll find it almost essential.
If you’re not familiar with Facebook, here’s the basic gist. Facebook is a directory of college (and high school now) students that was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. According to TechCrunch, 80% of American college students have a facebook account. Of that group, 80% check their facebook profile daily. Facebook allows you to input your name, school, classes, and interests, along with other activities like the storing of pictures.
Is Facebook a true networking tool? Some would say no, but I loudly exclaim yes. Through the judicious use of groups and friends, you can form clusters of people who believe the same way you do and would be able to help you advance yourself in some way. Of course, this is not really in the spirit of Facebook, but it is not disallowed by their Terms of Service. Also, Facebook can be used as a great marketing tool for a product or service that you offer to students. Some companies, like Pepsi and Apple, already have sponsored groups on Facebook that allows them to market to the college student demographic.
The Facebook interface is clean and tidy. Unlike other networking sites, Facebook doesn’t yet support customization of your profile and has not yet announced any plans to do so. A simple click on the edit button lets you change any of the myriad pieces of information in your profile.
As always, though, with the bad comes the good. If you display pictures of information on your profile that could be considered damning, you may wish to remove it. It has been rumored that hiring companies use profiles to check out future employees and their behavior. Someone could be spying on you, and you wouldn’t even know it. In addition, you will be “friended” by more than just people you know. I personally reject everyone except those I know in real life, but you may choose to handle this differently.
In conclusion, Facebook, is used the right way, can be quite a powerful networking and marketing tool. However, most students prefer to treat it solely as a social networking gateway where they can build profiles with a great number of friends just to say they have the most. If you’re judicious in your friend and group approval, you may find your Facebook experience is great and it may even help you achieve good things for yourself in the future.