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&lt;p&gt;A while back, I wrote a post on how social media can affect your career.  Basically, that post was all about damage control:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;Step 2:  Figure out whether you have a problem on your hands.&lt;/b&gt;  If any or all of your social media outlets are both (a) public and (b) contain information or, even worse, documentation of previous misdeeds that don&#39;t exactly speak to what a lovely, employable person you are, then you definitely have a problem.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m sure you&#39;ve followed my advice to a tee, assiduously checking all your &quot;Friends Only &quot; and &quot;Only Me&quot; buttons, and protecting those tweets like your life depended on it.  But many of you may not want to keep it that way.  You may think to yourself that the entire &lt;i&gt;purpose&lt;/i&gt; of social media is its public nature, that it connects you with the outside world.  I hear you.  But you have to do it right.  To find out how, I decided to ask my Facebook friend, former Vault employee and social media guru Sara Madsen for her advice on how to create a healthy online persona:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://content.screencast.com/users/cwisevault/folders/Default/media/b199c204-5124-40e8-b4a8-b93a27a2cc93/SaraFacebook.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sara Madsen, social media guru, Facebook page&quot; width=&quot;575&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;245&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;h3&gt;First of all, can you give me a general idea of how you have used Facebook to enhance your career?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;I have used Facebook to further connect with people I met at events or out with friends.  Before I got my job at appssavvy, for example, I connected with the employees here and got to know their profiles.  I was then able to reach out and ask them questions about office culture, which really helped me prepare for my first day here.  Since I work in social media, it&#39;s totally kosher to reach out to people in my professional and social circles via Facebook.  In all honesty, I am unsure how I would connect and stay in touch with my professional group of &#39;friends&#39; without it.  I think Facebook enables people who might not otherwise to get to know you.  You can endear yourself in a way that might go unnoticed in traditional face-to-face networking.  I mean, my interests are vast, and I would never have enough time in one physical interaction to get that out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;How much do you try to self-censor on Facebook?  Would your profile be different if it were completely private and you only used it to connect with friends and family?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;Again, I am lucky enough to work in an arm of media/advertising that does not frown upon, but rather encourages, you to be as free as you want to be through social media.  Do I publish photos of myself dancing on tops of bars?  No, but I really don&#39;t let anyone take my photo if I am dancing on the top of a bar either.  You can tell by my interests and photos posted that I don&#39;t really censor at all.  I don&#39;t think that I would change a thing about what I present to the world, be it professionally or friendly.  But I definitely need to be in a very specific industry that jives with my interests.  I think if I were a buttoned-up lady who worked in finance, yes, I would either have a very different profile or privatize more information.  But I have no intention of going that route.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;How do you communicate on Facebook?  Is it just via Facebook messages, or do you do other things as well?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;I use all possible forms of communication on Facebook and for those people who don&#39;t, they are doing themselves a disservice.  I communicate with my friends, past clients from Vault, and new clients here at appssavvy.  It&#39;s a good way to keep things light and build a relationship with people.  We can have a friendly conversation about a new page I LIKED and then get on the phone at work and have a business conversation.  I think it makes people more comfortable to do business with a real person.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;How do you approach a potential employer or client on Facebook?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;While I have never approached a potential employer on Facebook, I have initiated Facebook friendship with potential co-workers by simply friending them and sending them a Facebook message.  I kept it pretty simple and said that I was interested in learning a little bit more about the culture of the company and their role in the business.  Then, I used their response and profile as a barometer for what the company culture might be, given that they have employed that particular individual.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The clients that I have included as my friends on Facebook are of a certain mindset--people I have met through networking events that I know I want to keep up with on Facebook.  More and more, and especially in advertising, clients are friends!  We go out and develop relationships and it&#39;s easy to keep up with each other on Facebook; you know when their birthdays are and what they are up to.  It helps foster a relationship where both parties are easily approachable, which makes the business relationship that much easier as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What makes Facebook a particularly useful social platform when it comes to networking?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;There are three social platforms that EVERYONE uses to connect with friends and network with professionals--Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn--and they all have their unique attributes.  Twitter is a quick-and-dirty platform to share news and event updates; LinkedIn is an authoritative, professional environment where you can link with past colleagues, friends and other business partners and share recommendations and employment history; and Facebook can do all of that and more.  Facebook is such an important networking tool because you can become a real, relatable person to people, which helps build relationships that can help your career and your business.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;How do you keep people checking and posting to your Facebook profile?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;The key is to make sure you are always in the stream.  Facebook has created two different views of your feed--the default being the most popular &#39;Top News&#39; updates--so that as long as you are active, you always get flushed to the top of all of your friends&#39; feeds.  Of course, to keep people commenting, you should always update with something compelling, not simply &quot;I&#39;m at work.&quot;  Maybe repost a Twitter link or something from an article you&#39;ve read or a great idea you have.  That way, you can keep the conversation going.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Wow--is that Ben Stiller in one of your profile pictures?  How did that happen?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;Hahaha!  I was actually at Pete&#39;s Tavern with some friends around Christmas time and Ben was there with Bill Hader having dinner and I just waited for them to walk by and asked if I could have a photo.  What&#39;s so funny is that Bill started to get out of the way and I was like, NO!  Bill you have to be in the photo too!  And he looked at me and said &quot;JACKPOT!&quot; and stood for the photo.  I am not a huge fan of how I look in this photo but who cares!  That&#39;s Bill Hader and Ben Stiller!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What advice would you give someone trying to use Facebook to find a job or network?&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;p&gt;I would definitely tell them that the rules of using Facebook professionally are on a spectrum.  At one end, you can be totally yourself and let your flag fly and on the other end you need to set your profile to uber-private so the vultures can&#39;t get you.  Working in social media, most anything goes.  I mean, don&#39;t post photos and updates about doing body shots over the weekend.  Well, I guess go for it if that&#39;s your thing, but be prepared to be called out on it!  If you are using Facebook to advance/enhance your career, you should make sure that what people can search and see when they find you paints you in the best possible light and makes you a viable, valuable candidate for any job you are up for.  I would also suggest that people check friends&#39; walls often, I post hiring updates &lt;i&gt;all the time&lt;/i&gt;.  Our company hires mainly off of referrals.  We don&#39;t have a headhunter or recruiter, but we don&#39;t need one since we have a platform where these very smart appssavvians can reach out to their equally smart friends via Facebook and let them know that we are hiring, and we want you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;--Written by Madison Priest&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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