Recently, I’ve heard a lot of authors asking how to hide their personal profile page on Facebook. Today’s tip — provided by Novelist Inc. member Lauren Dane — will tell you how to do that. First, though, for those who are new to Facebook, I’ll explain why you’d want to hide your profile.
Facebook has two types of pages. The first is a profile page, which is what you get automatically when you join Facebook. To that profile, you can add “Pages,” which used to be called fan pages. You can’t have a Page without having a profile. For authors, or anyone using Facebook to promote themselves and interact with lots of people, a Page has many advantages, so I highly recommend you go that route.
Having both a Page and a profile gets confusing and cumbersome. So, your best option is to hide your profile so that only friends and family can see it. Even if you don’t want to use the profile deleting it is not an option. You have to have it in order to have the public Page. So, here it is…
How to Hide Your Personal Profile on Facebook
Lauren says to go to “my account” and the “privacy setting” and adjust everything to only “my friends.” Be sure to sweep through the whole thing as your profile picture will be viewable to anyone as long as you have one. Since you can’t hide your picture, Lauren chose to use a non identifying one (of a leaf covered gate) and she keeps pics of kids and home life in a friends only locked albums. In the settings area you can also control who can find you by searching and who they can give your personal info to, so be sure to uncheck the box they’ve already checked for you to give them permission to share your info.
Thank you Lauren! You can learn more about Lauren Dane by visiting her Website, LaurenDane.com
Related posts:
- Facebook 101: Basic Strategies for Authors
- Facebook 201: Creating an Author Page
- How to Customize your Facebook URL
Find me on Facebook at facebook.com/julieortolon.
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You have some good tips here, Julie. I hadn’t though of putting up a non-identifying profile picture.
My husband, a software engineer, found this super easy tool to scan and help correct facebook privacy settings. It’s located here: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ It’s easy to use this as an alternative to clicking back and forth between all of facebook’s settings pages, especially since facebook periodically changes your settings when it changes its privacy policy.
Debra, thanks for the link! I know a lot of authors who will appreciate that handy tool, so I’ll pass it on.
Bless your heart, Julie!! Finally the answer I was looking for. You are a goddess.
And here is another question, in case you know the answer…
I now have a fan page set up, but whenever I visit other sites or pages, and want to “share” that stuff with my fans (like your blog for instance), the link shows up on my regular profile page, not my Fan page. Is there a way to make sure all my activities get posted by default to the Fan page instead?
Good question, Julianne. I’ve been wondering the same thing. Let me investigate and report back.