By: Lisa Macklem and Michael Kernan

With over 500 million Facebook users, chances are either you or members of your company are on Facebook. Facebook is a great tool for business; it allows you to better sell to your customers as you get to know them better. You also get to know what is important to them, and it’s  an easy way for you to check in with customers. According to Facebook’s statistic page, people are spending in excess of 700 billion minutes a month on the social networking site.

However, we have all heard stories about the embarrassing post on Facebook that made someone look foolish. This article gives advice on how to better secure your Facebook, and take steps to prevent your company, or one of your employees, from looking foolish on Facebook.

Number 1

Change your privacy settings on your Facebook account to benefit your company.

Facebook has a profile privacy page that lets you change your settings to release only certain information to certain people. Review it to understand what is possible. You can change your settings so information is not available to anyone or only to some of your customers.

Here’s a link to a Youtube video on how to change your security settings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0sPYcxSxqs

Number 2

Create friend lists from your customers.

Facebook allows you to create friend lists to treat people differently and allows you to set different terms as to what customers can see or do. Friend lists are a great answer to protect against what customers can see on your Facebook page. It takes a little time to set this up for all of your customers, but it is well worth the time to prevent that picture of you from college from being shown to your customers who follow you on Facebook.

Number 3

Always use HTTPS.

You can increase your security on Facebook by always using an encrypted channel. This is just one more way to ensure you know exactly with whom you are sharing information.

Number 4

Be aware of who your friends are.

Take control of what you put on your page, in case your friends are your competition. What your “Friends” display on your wall may harm the relationship with your customers or your image. Make sure to adjust privacy settings to craft what is and what is not available to your customers or competition.

Number 5

Get notified when you are “tagged.”

You can set your notifications to alert you whenever someone tags you in anything. It’s a good idea to know what is being said about you and by whom as well as anyone who may be using you as a reference or authority. You can receive notifications for anytime you are tagged in a photo, video, or post. You can also configure your Facebook page so that only you see when you are tagged in a photo or video.

Number 6

Keep up with Facebook because they frequently change privacy and security settings.

Make sure that you keep abreast of any changes to Facebook’s settings as they frequently change without warning. This could result in information being made available to everyone. It’s a good idea to double check all settings after there has been a change as older posts may not update automatically even when you do re-set privacy and security settings.