Social Internet
Social networking etiquette
Ever since facebook.com opened it’s doors to the general public, the original inhabitants of the space (a.k.a former and current college students like me) have been dealing with some really important etiquette rules. For example, when you add someone on linkedin - do you also add them on facebook? Linkedin is like inviting yourself to someone’s office - fairly acceptable but facebook feels like inviting yourself to someone’s home- not so sure if that’s so acceptable.
Also how do you respond when colleagues, former bosses or people you simply admire and want to maintain a professional relationship with, add you on facebook? Can you realy decline, "Uhh - no thank you. I’m not sure I want you seeing my wall." Or my photographs. Or following my updates on twitter.
Facebook was a sanctuary - not anymore. It has become sadly become yet another social front that has to be maintained. My friends have become used to messaging me privately instead of writing on my wall as have I learnt to return the respect. Writings on walls are deleted in no second and for current college students who have some 300 plus photographs of themselves on facebook - I’d delete them before I launch on my job-hunt. Or atleast make them invisible. It’s like being found on a crime-scene — so many tracks to cover, hide and sometimes, create new ones if necessary.
I’m no Master, but I’ve figured out some pointers that, hopefully will help you as they helped me maintain a dual existence on facebook.
- Always have a limited profile, but have it with just enough (general) information on it so that the person doesn’t know it’s a limited profile.
- Try to not add people upfront - have them add you. This will automatically let you grant them access to limited or full profile and help you avoid the embarrasment in case you forget to limit someone while adding them. If you want them to notice you - send them a private message and hopefully, they’ll get the hint and add you.
- This might be a tough act to follow but sadly it has come down to it: be careful about the photos you post on facebook and your photos that your friends post. De-tag yourself from photos your friends post so you won’t be easily found. Limit access to your photo albums under limited profile views.
- Don’t twitter too much on facebook - really, if you are having a sucky Monday morning - your facebook followers don’t always need to know that. Esp. if your current boss is on facebook.
Discussion
4 comments for “Social networking etiquette”
Post a comment
i am gonna add u now. be prepared for some graffiti on the wall :p
Thanks so much for this useful posting. Facebook has a pretty sophisticated security/privacy setting. I definitely can’t imagine showing my wall to a subset of my not-so-close friends.
Chugs — hahaha! find me if you can
SVChick - Glad you found this useful. I’ve been troubled by how to respond to some requests that I’d rather not entertain on facebook.
With the dawn of the new ‘casual’ workplace, it isn’t really much of a worry to add your colleagues and bosses to your facebook or other networking lists.
I myself work in an upcoming start up (as you know
) and we are very casual about the way we work. It wouldn’t be worrying for my boss to see photos of me drunk and dancing cause chances are that he would be there when it happened 
Of course this is only possible in an ultra casual workplace which does not treat employees as white collared people but rather as friends working towards a common cause. I can imagine someone who works for a 100,000 work-forced MNC which has processes set-up even for tasks like lining up for the loo, worrying about the boss keeping an eye on what my latest scraps talk about. Frankly, how can anyone be comfortable working in such environments?
But with most organizations moving towards the ultra-casual environment, bosses are turning into friends and also drinking buddies. In such a case, they would’ve seen the worst of you at one of your parties and wouldn’t need to spy on your wall to find out what you are up to!
