Since so many people I know are on Facebook, I decided to join. Now I don’t know what to put on my profile page. Can you help?

Q:
Since so many people I know are on Facebook, I decided to join. Now I don't know what to put on my profile page. Can you help?

A:
I know what you mean. It's hard to decide what's important and what's not.

All the people I know love Facebook. A couple of my friends use it to promote their own personal web sites. Basically, the question to ask yourself is this: What do I want people to see when they visit me?

For instance, let's say you are a photographer. You might want to create a profile geared exclusively towards photography and not include a lot of details about your personal life. Or let's say you have a thoroughbred German Shepherd. You may want to have your profile reflect your interest in breeding dogs, maybe upload some pictures of your dog, offer tips on how to take care of a dog, etc. Or maybe you are like most everyone I know and just want to put your personal information on your page and look interesting.

Whichever route you choose, there are some basic tips that may help. Keep in mind that these are tips that will help with any social networking site, not just Facebook.

1. Create a profile that is simple and easy to read. If you clutter up your page with a lot of stuff, then you run the risk of having people jump on your page and then jump right back off. People on the internet surf fast and if have a ton of text and huge pictures that take a long time to load, then they are going to go on to someone else. On the other hand, the information you put on your profile page should be descriptive enough for others that have the same interests that you have can catch that right away. Use significant phrases in your descriptions that reflect your interests. This makes it a lot easier for people that share the things that are most important to find you.

2. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." I don't know who said that, but it is so true! There are a couple of easy ways to do it. You can make a good first impression just by having a nice layout. You can find tons of free layouts all over the internet; depending on the site they may have custom layouts that you can choose from. Get on Google and type in Free Facebook Layouts and you'll easily find something to express your artistic side. Another thing that you should do is make sure that the things expressed by you or someone that wrote on your page are things that can be read by anybody; you don't want somebody to get a bad first impression of you because someone left something nasty or mean on your page.

3. I should have put this first: Decide on exactly what you want to say! If you want to present the "real" you (well, within reason), then include hobbies, any qualities you want to brag about, interests that you would like to share with someone, etc. Think of your page, pick one main idea or interest, and focus on that. Try not to have a "rambling" page; everything that is on your page should pertain to whatever it is you want to focus on.

4. Be careful of who you add as a "friend" or contact. Make sure to add only those that like what you like, like to do what you do, etc. People will be checking out your "friends" as well. If they go to one of your "friends' pages and that person is – well – not exactly the type of person they would have anything to do with - they may never come back to your page again. Impressions, impressions…

Okay, there you go. These are just some basic tips to get your started. Once you do, you will learn to fine-tune your page and get it exactly how you want it.

Happy Social Networking!