Birthdays: they’re never as fun as you think they’re going to be. Actually, scratch that—they are a lot of fun, and I absolutely hate people that complain about birthdays. “Fine, we don’t have to celebrate your birthday if it’s really that much of an inconvenience to you. I can absolutely think of a better use of my hard earned $40 than chipping in for part of your Hibachi steak at Benihana’s.” (OK, poor example; there isn’t a better use of $40 than Benihana—their chicken fried rice is amazing, and that onion volcano they build, you know…with the vinegar smoke stack? Priceless).
But they are stressful, you have to agree with me on that. Organizing multiple birthday events (one for your close friends, one for your filler friends, and one for co-workers), registering for gifts, picking out your birthday outfits, oy vey I’m getting faklempt just thinking about it. But there’s one thing that stresses me out the most during the lead-up to my birthday: my Facebook profile.
In the same way that you make sure your room is clean and presentable right before you have people over, I always make sure my Facebook profile is tidy, up-to-date, and expressive of all that I’ve accomplished in the last 12 months (and by “expressive” I mean you should never let the truth get in the way of spinning an illustrative story).
Because think about how much traffic your profile gets on that day. This is your one chance to make sure that your “friends” can appropriately answer the “What’s Christopher doing with his life?” question when it inevitably comes up during cocktails. You want to arm them with the best info/scantily-clad body shots that you’ve got. Tens of people visit it on that day; here’s what you need to do to put your best foot forward:
Set a nice default photo.
I cringe when I find people that have the same photo up as they did from last year. “What? You couldn’t take a good picture all year. That sucks, and you should probably consider getting into a committed relationship now because clearly your looks have begun to plateau.”
I usually try to pick a photo from a trip I’ve been on recently; it beckons the visitor to linger on my profile a bit more and see how the rest of said trip went.
For this past birthday, I had just returned from Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. Obviously, I needed to make sure all of my contacts knew this—why else do you go to the Olympics, really? This was the best picture I could find:
While the Olympic flags haloed our heads quite appropriately, I was very nervous that this picture would give the impression that we were dating, as do most pictures of two people standing in front of a picturesque backdrop with moderately close body contact. Of course, a photo that presented me as anything BUT single would be absolutely unacceptable. Quick thinking, though, solved the problem: I captioned the photo with “We’re not dating.” Problem solved; single and ready to mingle.
[Note: Mashable recommends against changing your default photo often. I actually agree with this; maintaining one photo for a sustained period gives your brand consistency. That being said, I think it’s safe and recommended to update your profile once per quarter; I’d hesitate doing it more/less than that.]
Clean up the first 100 photos in which you’re tagged.
OK, you’ve set an interesting default photo—you’ve piqued their interest, congratulations! The next place everyone goes is the photos section. Woops; you got black out drunk two weeks ago and now a bunch of photos where your eyes are looking in opposite directions are plastered all over Facebook. Or worse yet, your idiot friend Rebecca just put up an album from the summer/your childhood, ruining the perfectly chronographic sequence you’d been building with your photos over the past few months (note: if people open up your photos and the first 10 they see are from the summer and it’s February, they’re going to assume you haven’t done anything worth documenting low these past 6 months). Time to start de-tagging!
I’m pretty liberal with the detag: as a rule of thumb, if you have to ask someone if you look good in this photo, you don’t. I usually prune the first 100; even though most people usually get about 20 photos deep before they move on to someone else, you have to protect against the crazies like me, who can roll through 40 photos a minute (when local broadband connections are at their peak).
Update your work info!!
For heaven’s sake, people, I don’t want to actually have to talk to you and figure out what you’re doing with your life. That’s why there’s an Employer section on Facebook. Do us all a favor and fill it out; that way, I can make a quick judgment about whether you’ve succeeded or failed since we last spoke with each other.
One caveat though: please don’t aggressively fill it out; company and dates are good enough. Putting your title in that section is douchey; including a description of your job is nerdy.
Follow these three simple steps and you’ll be well on your way to a successful Facebook profile unveiling upon your birthday. You’ll be thankful you did for the next 12 months.
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