The Internet's Freshest Face
However, those who are using Facebook simply to connect with friends may be confused as to how Facebook is supposed to build upon those relationships. When Victor Udoewa, a 30-year-old artist and scientist in Kaapstad, South Africa, became a Facebook member, he was skeptical about its benefits. “It felt weird that I had a Facebook page. I associated Facebook with college people, younger than me,” he explains. “My group tended to use Friendster.”
However, once he rekindled some long-lost connections, he realized the value of this new social platform. “I looked at my friends and saw all these people I wanted to communicate with,” he says. “I hadn’t talked to them in a long time. I went to Gmail and emailed them using the contact given in Facebook.” Now, Victor visits the site regularly and values it as a great way to reconnect with people he’s lost touch with in the real world.
Who’s Your Facebook Friend?
Generally, there are two reasons why people use Facebook: Either to find and reconnect with current friends and old friends from high school, college or a previous job or, more recently, as a business or career tool for people looking to connect with current and new clients and colleagues. Once you figure out why you’re using Facebook, you’ll be able to craft the right type of profile to suit your needs.
“Whatever I’m putting in my profile, that’s how people are going to look at me,” says Jesse Thomas, a blogger with the AllFacebook blog and co-founder of The Social Times, a blog that monitors social networking trends. “Make sure your profile is the representation of how you want to be seen. Once you see if your friends are there, grooming yourself becomes more relevant.”
Some launch their Facebook profiles with professional motives in mind, eventually using this tool to get in touch with old friends. For instance, Hugo Kugiya, a 42-year-old writer from Seattle, started his Facebook profile out of “curiosity, a bit of peer pressure and the faint motivation to stay better in touch with friends and former colleagues who might be helpful in a professional context down the road,” he explains.
