Facebook For Parents And Teens

Facebook for Parents and Teens Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

About Thought Labs

We help companies create and implement social media strategies that:

Make connections with their customers

Engage those customers to get real-time feedback

Interpret that feedback into concrete actions

Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

Our book on building Facebook Applications is due out in October, 2009.

Today’s Agenda

Brief Overview of Facebook

How Information Travels

Privacy

Parent/Teen Relationships

Questions

It now has over 250 million users.

More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college.

The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older.

The average user has 120 friends on the site.

More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide).

More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day.

#1 Social Network Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

Why are people on Facebook?

Light, simple social interactions

People want to stay in the loop

People HAVE to stay in the loop

Planning and events

Sharing what is important

Friends

Facebook friends are bidirectional – both need to agree to the “friendship”

By default, all friends are equal – they see and share everything

The norm is to have a lot of “friends”, but most are only surface relationships

Friend requests are often

accepted because of social

pressure.

Friend Lists

Friend lists allow you to put your friends into groups.

Friends can be in more than one list.

Friend lists can be used as a filter on the Home page for news stories

Friend lists can also be used for better privacy settings.

Recommendation

Create two friend lists:

Inner Circle – people you trust and would share anything with

Limited – people you want to see as little as possible about you

The Home Page Filters Profile Requests Suggested Friends The Publisher Events Pokes Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

The Profile Profile Picture More about me News about me Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

Status Updates

Status updates can be just text or include pictures, videos, links and other application functionality.

They are seen by all of your friends.

Uploading PhotosVideos

Each photo or video can have a caption and be tagged.

They are seen by all of your friends (by default)

Tagging

Tagging is clicking on anything in the picture and selecting which friend it represents.

Tagged friends and all their friends will see the picture (by default).

The target doesn’t actually have to be in the picture.

Commenting

Anyone who can see a news story can comment.

Comments are seen by the original poster and friends

The original poster and the commenter can delete the comment.

How information travels

The Lesson:

Once it is out there, it is really out there.

1. I post a picture and tag my friend 2. It appears on my profile 3. It appears on the Home pages of all my friends 4. It appears on the Home pages of the friends of the person I tagged 5. As friends and friends of friends comment or “like” it, the photo spreads rapidly through the social graph Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

Privacy

Facebook provides very granular settings for privacy and takes it very seriously.

The default settings are just ok, but can be improved upon.

Defaults for Profile

Most settings default to Network and Friends, which means all of Boston can see them.

Recommendations for Profile

Use Only Friends for most.

Exclude “Limited Profile” friend list when possible.

Have Video and Photo tags set to Only Me or a small friend list.

Defaults for Search

You can hide yourself completely from search both on and off Facebook.

Defaults for the News Feed

You control how far your actions travel when you interact on Facebook.

Information Lives Forever

Using the privacy settings, you control who can see the content you post.

Facebook also allows you to delete your content and it should automatically get removed from all over the site.

However, there is nothing to prevent anyone who has access to that content from copying it and reposting it on or off Facebook, or emailing it around.

In general, if you publish it anywhere,

it is public .

Online Etiquette

Unlike a lot of the Internet, Facebook isn’t anonymous, so all of your actions are associated with you. It is your reputation you are managing.

Since all your friends are on there, what you say and do is likely to be known to everyone. Be careful about what you say – it is hard to take it back.

Excluding people is harder online. You can have private events, but they might see the pictures later.

Request that offensive or hurtful content be removed by the owner or report it. There are ways to do this anonymously. There is no reason to allow yourself to be bullied or humiliated.

What goes around comes around, so be sure to hold yourself to the standards you want others to use for you.

Parent/Teen relationships

Set some rules up front – how much time, acceptable content, profile checks, posting on each other’s profiles, etc.

Beware of TMI – Too Much Information. Do you really want to know what they are thinking and doing?

Parents and teens can be friends, but don’t have to be. The Limited friend list can help.

“ Going on to Facebook and checking out your children's profile is really not much different than going into your kid's room or looking through your kid's things.“ - Jenifer Lippincott Copyright @2009 Thought Labs, LLC. Contact us at info@thoughtlabs.com

Don’t Mess With The Law

Facebook complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by not allowing children under 13 to have accounts. Anyone under 13 is violating the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Posting illegal content or videos or photos of crimes can get you arrested. There are many documented cases of this. Don’t incriminate yourself.

Harassing or bullying people online has the same repercussions as doing it face to face, except there is a written record.

While not illegal, posting inappropriate content can still get you in trouble; not only at school, but also with universities, future employers, etc. Use good judgment and good privacy settings.