To Friend or Not to Friend? That is the Question.
A lot of clients have been asking me lately about friending on Facebook. They want to know who to friend and who not to friend and what to do when people you do not know personally ask to be your friend. Let’s talk about it.
Think of yourself as the admissions director to your own University of Facebook. You can only allow 5000 people to be accepted to your very exclusive institution. You want them to be the ones that most fit the kinds of students or friends you want. People that will be interested in the courses (your posts) and people that will most resonate with what the administration has to offer- your products and services.
To determine who is best suited for admission you need a strategy and a criteria. To create your strategy answer the following question.
Why are you on Facebook? For fun, to reconnect with your high school and college friends, to stay in touch with your current clients, to attract new clients, to increase referrals? You are the only one who can answer this question. I suggest you have a business focus.
2. Based on your answers for question #1 you can now create your criteria for who you let in your online network. If you know them personally and you like them –let them in. For people that you do not know personally they have to meet your criteria, meaning they fall into one of the groups of the kind of people you want to connect with. They meet your ideal client profile or they are a good strategic alliance partner for you. If you think they are super interesting or cool you can of course still let them in.
This also means if you come across people you would like to add to your network you can friend them too. I suggest always including a note about why you would like to be their friend for a higher approval rating.
You can only let 5000 people into your exclusive network admit them wisely. Happy friending.
Comments
Caterina – this is a brilliant metaphor for deciding who to friend on FB! I notice that if people I know—or we don’t have friends in common—send me a friend request without a message, I ignore them unless I can see on their public page that they are up to things that might “qualify” them to be on my list.
Ruth
Yes, Ruth. I totally agree.
Caterina-Thank you so much! I’ve been wondering about this very topic for months since I began using my FB page for business and not just personal. The way you explained it makes total sense. Thanks again for your insight.
Lara
Hi Caterina, I face this dilemma too. I don’t want to have multiple FB pages, so I’ve been mixing business with pleasure! Sometimes I post social activities, sometimes I post political or business commentary and web links.
Lara,
I am so glad this is helpful to you.
Anna,
All this is great for you. Because your personal brand is very much about being connected to what is happening in your community and calling people to action politically. This all totally matches you.
Good article. I have two FB pages, one for friends (connecting and reconnecting) and one for business (to inform on tax matters and draw new clients). It’s fun to know that many of my clients are friends on both of my pages!
Bonnie, Thanks for your comment. I have 2 pages to. I still do a lot of business on my personal pages. I find it great for building new relationships.
Caterina:
My deecision was to use Facebook only for personal. Friends from school. My personal policy is no co-workers past or present since I primarly social activities, photos, etc.
Linked In is my professional network. I post all my professional activities and updates.
Thanks Valerie. We all have to make our own choices and create our own criteria. Making a conscious decision to set your criteria is the point I want to make sure people get.
This is such a great topic. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Sometimes we are so bombarded with friend requests from people we don’t know that it become stressful. Fiend has a wole new meaning. Ignoring a friend request can be a tough choice you have to make. Doing it politely can softern the impact. I think that it is pointless to keep adding friends if we don’t plan to build relationships and create community. Otherwise it becomes an act of friend banking and serves no real purpose. There seems to be something uncivil about that.
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