Finally, Facebook Lets Us Segment Our Connections

The new "group" feature of Facebook seems very promising.

Unlike the OTHER Facebook Group feature (I know, it's confusing), this one lets you categorize and segment the members of your network (aka your "friends").

I did a quick test to see how easy it was to create a new group, and it seems pretty straightforward.  I haven't explored all the bells and whistles yet, but according to the Duct Tape Marketing blog it will let you send messages and have conversations privately with certain segments of your audience.

One of the biggest issues I have with Facebook is the incestuous nature of it.  Business mingles with personal and vice versa.  It can be very scary, and downright dangerous.  The confusing privacy settings of Facebook make it very easy for people to say just the wrong thing and have it seen by just the wrong person.

This is HUGE for businesses. I'm not going to jump into this pond with both feet however.  It still remains to be seen how the business side of me will intermingle with the personal side.  I'll continue to be cautious, and so should you, with everything you say on Facebook.

Don't confusing this with Facebook Groups, which lets you create an online group and invite people to be members.

I'll try to do some more research and give you some more info on this next week.  If you want to play with it yourself, you can go to the groups page and give it a whirl.  Let us know if you find anything out.

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