Facebook Etiquette
Someone (let’s call her Rachel*) asked for my advice about Facebook friending etiquette the other day. We are both friends in the real world (an old Uni pal) and we are also friends of Facebook. Rachel, who is an internet newbie who stays mainly on Facebook, had received a “friend” request from a business colleague of her husband’s.
Rachel told me, “I don’t know what to do. I use Facebook for my close friends and family and this lady is nice but she’s - well - a business contact. If I accepted, she’d be the only non- “real friend”. And I use Facebook for, you know, personal stuff that only friends and family would be interested in. But I don’t want to be rude.”
This is a dilemma I’ve come across a number of times.
With people you don’t know at all who just came across your profile on Facebook and try to “friend” you because their aim is to reach, like, wow, 1,000 friends, man - you just ignore them. That’s easy.
With friends who are your real-life friends ie you know them in the real world and they actually are your friends in that sense of the word, that’s easy too - you accept them.
It’s these in-betweeny people who are your acquaintances or business colleagues or someone you met at a party and spoke to for five minutes - what do you do about them? For me, my Facebook profile and all my public online presences are part of who I am in public and relate to my profession as a writer and social media specialist so if the person fits with that public me, then I accept them. For private personal connections, I maintain private spaces eg for family photos and videos.
For Rachel and many others like her, her presence online is not part of a public, business-related presence and she’s just having some fun with friends and family. This is where privacy settings and more “un-friendly” conduct becomes necessary - and is quite legitimate. I suggested that she explain to her husband’s business colleague that she uses Facebook for family and close, personal friends only and if she’s worried about the colleague taking it the wrong way, to make sure she knows that Rachel can be friendly in other ways that work better for the nature of the business relationship.
As we live more and more of our lives online, privacy issues are going to become more and more relevant. At the moment, there are no rules of etiquette for social interactions online and generally, what we’ve been using in the real world works too online. But new etiquette is bound to evolve as new issues and circumstances arise. In a case like this, it’s a matter for Rachel to find a way to best negotiate who she friends and what personal information she shares online - but it’s also a matter for the business colleague to respect the privacy of the person who does not wish to “friend” her online (although Rachel may be comfortable meeting her from time to time in the appropriate business setting).
So, Rachel didn’t accept the friend request. What do you think? Would you have friended this colleague anyway?
*not her real name
Photo: thanks to jennybento from flickr.com
- Posted on
Thu, February 21st, 2008 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 4 responses
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February 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I’ve ended up with two Facebook profiles, one with an admittedly wide range of friends and former colleagues I’ve got on well with and another using my work email which is strictly kept in the context of business - free of embarrassing FB apps and so on. On a couple of occasions, I’ve re-directed current workmates and business acquaintances from one FB account to the other without incident. Generally, though, I’ll try and keep the ’strictly business’ side of things on Linked-In.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
It makes sense, Michael, to have two profiles on FB like you have - but I can imagine it could take more time to manage both, and you’d need to keep track of who falls into which category. I’ve not got into LinkedIn much though I do have a profile there - someone else also said it’s good for business-related conversations so I’m going to check it out in more depth.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
LinkedIn presents its own challenges.
Like Rachel, who is selective about who she lets into her Facebook network, I’m careful about who I connect with in LinkedIn. The intent was to link with people whom I’ve worked with in some capacity — jobs, contracts, volunteer efforts — and am willing to vouch for. I actually thought that *was* the intent of LinkedIn but, to borrow your sentence, there seems to be as many people on LinkedIn as on FB whose “aim is to reach, like, wow, 1,000 friends, man.”
At least once a month, I get a link request from someone who I had a passing interaction with eight years ago (or some such) and whose skills, abilities, and work ethic I know nothing about. I sometimes end up leaving invitations sitting in my inbox for weeks until I figure out how to handle the situation.
Maybe I’m missing something…
February 27th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Whitney - the thing about virtual networks is that anyone can approach you to make a connection and as you say, you may not know who they are. In the real world, we can usually trust introductions made people we know already because these mutual contacts act as a filter.
BTW, I just heard that someone on Facebook has 2 million friends - and has been offered her own TV show (why? because those connections have commercial value to the TV station, I suppose!)