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With all of the social networking sites available, it can seem as though these are merely ways to distract yourself rather than actual tools you can use for a business. But if you're looking to spread the word about your writing skills, Facebook may just be one of the best ways to do it – if you know how to manage your page. While you might want to keep your friends and family up to date on all of your favorite bands and vacation photos, when you're looking to create a site that displays your business, you need to keep a few additional things in mind.

Gathering Up Friends

The debate over who you should or should not include as a friend ages on today. While many people think you should only include people you know, others are more than willing to add you if you want to be added as one of their friends. But what should you do as someone who wants to spread the word about your writing work? You will probably want to start out by adding your friends and family. This will help you begin your network and you will begin to see other people with whom you might want to be friends, even if you're only acquaintances. You might also want to join a number of groups focused on writers to see if you can network and add friends from those you 'meet' in these groups. Obviously, the more friends you have, the better it will be for exposure. After all, when you finally do start your marketing blitz, you want to make sure your message reaches as many people as possible.

Spreading the Word

Ideally, you should include all of your business contact information on your Facebook page as this will help others contact you about your work. You can also do a number of things to help spread your name and your skills around. Post links to articles you've enjoyed and comment on them to get attention for your opinions. Reply to those who comment to show you are listening and that you want to engage with others. You might also want to post writing you're working on to see what others have to say. Others like to post their favorite books or authors, while others like to use their status update section to talk about what they might be working on at the current moment. No matter what you choose to do, just make sure you are being consistent and frequent with your posting. You want your friends to learn as much about you and your writing life as possible – every day, if possible.

Privacy Matters

Of course, just because you want to spread the word doesn't mean you need to spread all of your information. It might be a good idea, for example, to separate some of your Facebook page from the general public. You can do this by creating friends lists and distributing only certain pieces of information to certain groups – i.e. status updates to friends, wall postings to friends, everything else to prospective clients. That said, you need to make sure you're watching what you're saying and who you're saying it about. The truth is that anything you post online can be accessed by nearly anyone else, so make sure you're not creating a bad impression of yourself as a potential writer.