There has always been somewhat of a divide between social media channels. Facebook was more for personal sharing and LinkedIn was the place for professional sharing. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you are surely aware of the list of skills. In fact, your contacts can “endorse” you on those skills within LinkedIn.

Over the weekend, Facebook made a move to add more business features to your Facebook profile. I’ve included a graphic showing the Professional Skills now listed on my own Facebook page and you can start adding skills to your profile now.

Go to the About tab of your Facebook page and you should see an Edit button at the top right of the Work and Education section. Most likely, your professional skills section will be initially empty since it was just made available in the last few days. Click the Edit link next to the Professional Skills section heading and you can start adding skills. Just type the first few letters and a drop-down list will appear.

There is one other setting that is important as you are adding skills. At the top right of the box listing the Professional Skills is an icon representing who can see the list. Mine defaulted to Public and you can change it to Friends, Only Me or whatever other custom setting you desire. While I typically keep most of my posts and information limited to Friends, this is one section I’ll leave Public as I don’t mind everyone being able to see my skills.

This new feature of Facebook will undoubtedly be tweaked over time to make improvements. I also expect Facebook will leverage it more to take some professional turf from LinkedIn. What do you think of this new feature?