Visual Analysis

David Mena

Facebook Page Analysis

The image I chose is a screenshot of what the public eye would see if they were to search for my Facebook page.  Social media plays a huge role in modern-day society; both the professional market and consumers alike take advantage of this fact.  For this reason, I believe that the impression of a social-media page is just as important as the impression we communicate in person.

In this piece, I am the author and, since it's a Facebook page, I am simply showing the world that I have a life and it's filled with status/picture-worthy moments that others should like (hahaha). In most circumstances, the audience of a Facebook page is a large group of friends, mostly acquaintances, who might be interested in keeping up with my personal life and vice versa.  With the settings of Facebook, however, it is possible for anyone in the general public that has a Facebook profile to become part of the audience.  Hopefully, none of these strangers are stalkers or serial killers, but rather people who are interested in knowing more about you for appropriate reasons.  For example: a client.
If a client were to consider me as their personal dietitian for hire, they would probably find out a lot of information about me as a professional on my business webpage (or something like that).  They could also have the thought of checking my Facebook page as well.  Sure, the business page may have a plethora of wonderful credentials and interesting numbers, and I might even seem like a perfect candidate in person, but social-media has the potential of tearing that all down to the ground.  In the professional fields, keeping your Facebook page in check is just as important as keeping your slacks and ties in presentable condition.

  Your professional credibility can go down the drain if your Facebook page has pictures from the last party you went to and a recent status about how much you hate the President of the United States.  Even if your party days are over, Facebook kept that picture someone posted of you sleeping on the floor while someone drew penises on your face five years ago.  I'm sure many people out there are in the market for a dietitian who will prescribe more alcohol and less sleep, but chances are that most people wouldn't trust such a "professional."  My page, however, needs to be analyzed in detail. 

On my Facebook page, as of February 16 of 2014 and as a viewer from the general public, the first thing a person will see is a picture of my face and another picture behind my face in which I am sitting atop a hill in Toledo, Spain with peers from high school.  From these two pieces of information there is already much that can be said.  First of all, my profile picture is actually a picture of me, not my dog or a tree.  So the client knows it’s me.  Second of all, I am not truly smiling in the picture, but I am not making a goofy face either; I am almost posing with my face in the picture.  So the client knows I put thought into how my face is presented online.  Third of all, not only am I in my residence hall room, but I am also standing up.  There is nothing inappropriate in the background and I wasn't sitting around, bored, when I decided to take a new profile picture. Now let’s look at the cover photo.  There are multiple others looking away, they seem to be posing for a camera, but I am looking at the camera directly in front of us, singling me out as “David Mena” from the group of people.  In the background there is a cityscape of Toledo.  The client might think it nice that I entertained myself to an international trip with a group of people and took interesting photos.  So far, so good. 

When a viewer of the general public scrolls down, they cannot see any of my recent posts but they can see that I updated my profile pictures and cover photos throughout the year.   To the left of this there is a brief preview of some of my friends, along with a total count of all the friends who can interact with me on Facebook.  This will also give away information since a small quantity of friends might indicate a false profile, whereas a large number of friends will indicate a true profile.  Above all of the friends’ pictures, there is an option to add me as a friend “to see what [I] share with friends,” letting the public viewer know that they obviously can’t see everything about me or the full content of my timeline.  This being said, any stranger who lacks the ability to hack will not gain any more information about me from Facebook than I will allow them to.

Conclusively, I believe that my personal page is well-kempt and presentable enough as it is to be displayed for potential clientele.  I just have to make sure it stays that way until I move on to becoming an actual professional.  Since the entire human population (not true, many animals too, especially pets) has a Facebook page, I think everyone should be cognizant of the fact that, as an author, we should all keep our audience in mind and take caution in what we want them to know.

Works Cited Page

"Facebook Profile Page." Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.