Are you Facebook friends with people you meet through business groups and events? Or do you keep your Facebook account restricted to close friends and family members?

When I first got on Facebook back in 2008, I figured I would be friends only with people I knew pretty well in the real world – family members and friends.

Then over time, I broadened my circle to include people I know from Toastmasters, an international communication and leadership organization. Then I added people I know from my church and other organizations. The common denominator being that my Facebook friends only people I knew from my personal life and/or my larger circle of personal connections.

More recently I have noticed that people I meet in my business networking groups have asked to be friends on Facebook. At first I hesitated, as I wasn’t really sure how I felt about accepting these friend requests. After all, once someone is a Facebook friend, they can see whatever is posted on your personal page, aka personal timeline. Did I want casual business acquaintances seeing family pictures?

I thought about it for a while and eventually realized that, for many people, their Facebook account is actually a blend of personal and professional news and information. So, if I want to stay up-to-date with someone’s professional life, it made sense for me to be Facebook friends with them.

Each person has their own criteria for who they decide to be friends with on Facebook. Some are like me. Others don’t accept friend requests from business connections. Instead they direct people sending the request to like their business page instead.

 

Suggestions for Using Facebook with Business Connections

• If a business connection asks to be a Facebook friend, consider accepting the request. However, if you really don’t want them seeing your posts, start by going to their personal page on Facebook and put them into the category of Acquaintances. Do this by clicking on the word “Acquaintances.”
• The next step is to go to your Facebook privacy setting. Here is the link to that: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy
• Then click on the word Edit at the end of the line that starts “Who can see my stuff?” Click on the drop down arrow where you will find several options for this default setting regarding you will see your posts on Facebook. Select “Friends except Acquaintances.”
• Now these business colleagues won’t see your posts unless you make a particular Facebook post “Public” or “Friends” when you create it, thus overriding the default setting. The choices you have for each post are found in a drop down box that is just to the left of the blue “Post” button.
• If you find that you don’t care for most of what the business connection is posting on Facebook, you can just stop following them. To do that, go to their page and click on the word “Following.” When you do this, they can see your posts (unless you had put them in an Acquaintance status as described above), but you don’t have to see theirs.
• Being friends with business connections on Facebook does make it easy for you to let them know you are thinking of them by posting a link on their Facebook personal page to something they might find interesting or useful. Or you can just comment on a post of theirs.
• Or if you want to publicly thank and/or acknowledge that person, you can “tag” that person when you reference them in a post you make on Facebook.
• Tagging means that when you type in their name, you click on the box that comes up with their name on photo in it, which means that your post will also appear on their personal Facebook page, so all their other Facebook friends will know about it.

 

How About You?

What is your policy relative to being Facebook friends with people you know only through your business world? Has your policy changed over time?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.