It’s a pretty common feature in social networks such as LinkedIn to be able to see who visited your profile. Facebook, however, still refuses to offer this option.

So, is there any way you can see who visited your profile?

No, simply there isn’t (yet). Some app developers came up with apps like “Stalker” or “Top Visitors“, but Facebook shut those third-party applications down. Even if you find an app that promises to track Facebook visitors on your profile, bear in mind that usually the other person needs to use the same application (same applies to “Trakzor“, one of the very few applications to track visitors on your MySpace profile).

And since there is no option that allows implementing HTML code, Google Analytics isn’t really helpful either.

The only insight into search and traffic data Facebook allows is the Analytics section when you buy an ad on the Facebook network. But unfortunately, that’s about it!

Facebook has changed a lot recently. New, and sometimes groundbreaking features get released on a weekly basis. Interesting times we’re living in- thanks to Twitter, Bing, and Google, the more ideas that enter the market, the more is happening.

If you lost track of all the changes and updates Facebook provided, don’t worry. We compiled 5 essential security options you should check out if you want to keep your account information secure.

1. Erase Useless Applications

Over time, some Facebook users collect dozens of applications (like quizzes, games, or brand apps). Once you allow an application to access your profile, permission remains until you delete the application or alter the apps’ privacy settings. The latter works great for apps you are currently using (like Seesmic or Yelp on the second screenshot), but what about these quizzes you took a while ago? Do you want to delete apps that have become obsolete?

Here’s how to do it: Go to Settings / Application Settings. Click through the box “Show” to see if there are any unnecessary apps waiting to be deleted. Make sure to check all of the drag-down options in “Show“.

2. Limit External Application’s Access To Your Information

You better keep an eye on the apps you’d like to keep. Although Facebook has laid out clear rules for app developers how and in which ways to use personal information, it’s great to have some control over which information gets spread. In “Show“, open “Granted Additional Permissions“. In here you can stop apps from publishing news on your news feed (and your friends’ news feed) or from accessing your information when you’re actually not using the app:

3. How Public Is Your Profile?

Perhaps the most overlooked security features in Facebook are hidden in the Settings / Privacy / Search domain. How do you want your Facebook page appear to people who you’re not friends with? Do you like to be listed in Google? If so, what do you allow people to see once they click on your listing in search engine results? Your friends list, your profile picture, or pages you are a fan of? You can change all these options here.

Remember that people who don’t have a Facebook account will never be able to see your full profile. But they will be able to see a page similar to this:

You can determine what appears on this page if you check the corresponding boxes in the Settings / Privacy / Search options, like a button to send you a message or to befriend you:

4. Control the Usage Of Your Pictures In Ads By Facebook Or Third Parties

To this point, Facebook is not letting third party advertisers use your name or pictures for their advertisement, however, Facebook states that this might change in the future. If you look at the screen shot, you can secure your content by letting “No One” make usage of your information in Settings / Privacy / News Feed And Wall / Facebook Ads.

A different story are ads from Facebook itself. The so-called “Social Ads” are showing Facebook pages that might interest you. These Facebook ads also show who of your friends is a fan yet. If you wish not to appear as a fan of a certain page to your friends, scroll down to the bottom of the page and check “No One” in the “Show” box:

5. Group Your Facebook Friends

This feature has been around for a while now but not too many people take advantage of it. Probably because it takes some time to configure and the button for creating friends lists is hidden on your home page.

Let’s say you’re friends with your coworkers and don’t want them to see last weekend’s pictures other friends post about you? No problem. Create a list named ‘coworkers’ with all of your workmates and exclude this list of people in the Settings / Privacy / Profile section. Here’s how you do it:

On your home page, locate the “News Feed” section on the left. Expand it by clicking on “More” if necessary and “Create a new List“.

Now you can name your new group and select the people you wish to be included from your friends list. Finally, click on “Save“.

In Settings / Privacy / Profile, click on “Photo Tagged Of You” and choose the “Customize“. In the box below you can enter several friends or, to make it easier, the list you’ve just created:

]]> http://thefillmorejive.com/social-media/stay-on-top-of-facebook-security-5-ways-to-protect-your-information/feed/ 0 http://thefillmorejive.com/social-media/new-to-twitter-so-what-is-the-buzz-all-about/ http://thefillmorejive.com/social-media/new-to-twitter-so-what-is-the-buzz-all-about/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:12:10 +0000 sebastian http://thefillmorejive.com/?p=100

Whether you’re new to Twitter or not, what do you make of these two statements:

1. “80% of all Tweets are pointless blabber”
2. “Twitter? I don’t get it.”

Well, in a way, both are true. There are tons of people on Twitter who still don’t get what Twitter is actually made for, and even more people tweet about stuff 99.9% of the audience is purely not interested in.

But, what’s wrong with that? Twitter is all about communication. Twitter is about talking, and perhaps even more, listening. Let me give you an example: Gmail went down this morning. I was wondering if it was just my internet connection or another breakdown at Google, so instead of checking the official Google Blog or mashable.com for any news on this, I wanted to see if other Gmail users experience the same problem. There’s no better place to look for live comments than the real-time search in Twitter. Quickly after typing “Gmail down” into the Twitter search bar, I saw that hundreds of other Twitter users were mentioning that Google’s mail service just broke down. You can’t get news any quicker than this.

I’m probably not interested in what most of neighbors are talking about right now. On Twitter, I can filter the stuff I’m interested in, that is by searching for it. At least to me, that’s the actual sense of Twitter.

Of course you can promote your business, your latest blog post, or try to convince people how easy it is to get 10k new followers within 2 weeks. Again, no big difference than in real life. Imagine you’re on a marketplace that is packed with people. Some want to sell, maybe pursue you, some walk around and look, while others just come there to meet people and have a chit-chat.

So, what can you make out of it? Try it out. Pick a topic of interest, see what others have to say in real-time, and start a conversation.

I found this on TheNextWeb, what a perfect example of how to get fired within seconds:

You might hate your job. Fine. You also might hate your boss, or your coworkers. Fine. But, don’t post it in your Facebook/Twitter/Blog whatsoever. More and more companies not only crawl Social Media sites for comments or mentioning of their brand name, they also monitor your IT activity at the work place.

Another great example is the story of Kimberly Swann who got fired because she said in her Facebook status update “I’m so bored at work”.

So – take your buddies for a drink and complain as much as you want, but make sure your boss is not on the next table.