So you've set up your profile, made connections with hundreds of friends, old classmates and former coworkers, and now you're asking yourself the question, "Who is looking at my Facebook profile?" Sure, after you post your pictures from the weekend, you sit back and watch the comments roll in; but who's looking through your album and not commenting?
Can I Track Who Is Looking at My Facebook?
Facebook alerts you when someone writes on your wall, comments on a photo, and "Likes" your status. What Facebook won't fill you in on, however, is when someone has simply viewed your profile. Still, when Facebook launched its application platform in May 2007, third party developers began building applications that offered more interactivity than Facebook had ever seen. Out of these applications came tracking systems that aimed at showing you who was looking at your profile.
Facebook's terms of use prohibit the ability to track who has looked at what. This in itself has made it very tricky to find out who is viewing your profile on the popular social networking site.
FBspace
FBspace is a tracking tool available by subscription that enables you to create your own customizable profile that links from your original Facebook profile. For a monthly fee, FBspace sends users alerts when someone clicks into their FBspace profile. Your friends do not have to subscribe to FBspace in order to be tracked.
Facebook Privacy
- Privacy Levels: Facebook takes pride in protecting your privacy. Therefore, the social networking site provides you with an assortment of ways to protect your privacy. Your privacy settings are broken down into three levels:
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- Friends
- Friends of Friends
- Everyone
Control who can view your profile, photo albums and other Facebook activity by making your profile visible to friends or friends of friends.
- Groups: Create friend groups to ensure that certain friends can only see what you want them to see. For example, if you're friends with your boss or subordinates, create a "Colleagues" group and specify that this group can only view your information, but not your photo albums or wall posts.
- Search Results: Facebook even allows you to control whether or not you show up when someone searches for you by name. If you prefer to be the one sending friend requests rather than receiving them, choose to remove your profile from search results.
Encourage Posts
So the next time you're wondering, "Who is looking at my Facebook?" post a thought-provoking status or interesting picture to encourage your friends to comment. For example, pose a question like "As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?" or "What songs would go on the soundtrack to the movie of your life?" Comment on your friends comments, which will drive your post higher on your friends' newsfeeds, which will of course, encourage even more friends to look at your Facebook.
- Initial Author: Janine Stevens
