As of December 2010, Facebook reported over five hundred million users. Facebook originated as a personal social platform, so its profile includes basic information, such as education and interests, but is more geared toward sharing ideas, comments, and photos.
Like LinkedIn, you can attach your blog to your Facebook profile so your posts will appear on your profile.
Like LinkedIn, the social, interactive component of Facebook enables you to connect to people as “Friends” and to see their Friends. You can send messages to your Friends and sometimes to their connections, so you have the ability to organize, maintain, and grow your network via Facebook.
Facebook has a Pages function, which works like the Groups function in LinkedIn. The range of Page subjects is much wider on Facebook, because it is predominately a personal site. You will see opinions, cultural themes, and other non-career-related Pages. At the same time, some Pages are dedicated to organizations where you may be able to see job posts and breaking news. Other Pages are dedicated to professional and career-related subjects, and you may see advice or resources on them.
Facebook is predominately a personal site, but there are advantages to your job search from having a Facebook profile:
- The reach is much wider, so you may be able to connect with more people. If you can’t find someone on LinkedIn, Facebook provides another option.
- The best networking starts with developing rapport, so the predominately personal environment of Facebook may be less intimidating for both job seeker and prospective networking targets.
- Organizations and people interact differently on different social media, so Facebook provides another data point for reaching organizations and people of interest.
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