Who are you “friends” with?
April 1st, 2009Posted by: Chuck Fitzpatrick Posted in Media Monitoring, Resources, Twitter, Web 2.0
The other day Hannah sent me a blog post titled 10 Things to Do Immediately After a Networking Event. There’s a lot of good information in there, and while I agree with most of it I’m going to have to take issue with number 2.
2) Connect on Facebook. My favorite strategy. I look the people up on Facebook using their business cards and add them to my network. Now, I know their birthdays, their occupation, and their day to day status (literally!). Best Rolodex in the world.
I know people use different networking sites in different ways. And I’ve been in a handful of arguments about the people I’m “friends” with on Facebook. But I can say that 99% of those friends are people I have actually hung out with casually outside of a networking event, conference, or business club. I wouldn’t consider somebody I wanted to form a potential new business relationship with as a Facebook friend candidate. It just seems a little too personal.
Then there’s LinkedIn. They don’t even call them friends, they’re “connections.” I consider that more of a professional network than Facebook and that’s pretty much what it’s intended to be. My LinkedIn connections are all people I’ve worked with in some capacity at one point or another, save for a few close friends that going to be connected to me on any networking site that I’m part of.
Last but not least, there’s the Wild West of social networking, Twitter. If I follow somebody it’s because I’m interested in what they have to tweet about. I’m not going to get my feelings hurt if they don’t follow me back. Part of the beauty of Twitter is that you can be part of the conversation without having to know somebody at all.
Am I alone here? Do you have boundaries for different social network “friends” or is it just a free for all now?
Tags: connections, Facebook, friends, linkedin, networking, social networks, Twitter
April 1st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I totally agree. Facebook for me is only friends and coworkers that I don’t hate (sorry, rest of coworkers).
April 1st, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Hi Chuck,
Glad you liked most of the post. : )
What you are talking about is really a personal choice in my opinion. I often talk about the importance of having a Facebook friending policy.
Some people (such as you and Hannah!) use Facebook as a personal connection platform. I use it more an open source platform – to connect with whoever wants to connect with me. It’s been a great branding and marketing tool so far.
However, it is very much a personal choice. = )