I came across a nice post by Paola Bonomo here.
She had a valid point – Choose how you use your social networks. She talks about how she differentiates between her facebook friends, LinkedIn friends etc.
I thought it was a point worth reflecting about given the amount of time we spend on social networks these days. When I gave this some thought, I realized my own social network rules (unconscious prior to reading this post) –
1) Facebook: I do not add people on facebook unless they are colleagues from work/close family friends. However, I tend to accept any friend request with mutual friends. The main idea here is that my blog is linked to my facebook and I see it as a way of ‘spreading the word’.
(Hope this will change once I transfer to the ‘alearningday.com’ domain that would enable the posts to be easily searchable. That change is scheduled to happen soon!)
Other subconscious rules for facebook are hard. I’m not an ‘active’ facebook-er in terms of activity except for the fact that my blogs are linked to it. However, I try to wish people I know on their birthdays, take as many ‘wall’ conversations to messages as I can and keep my facebook status activity to the minimum.
2) LinkedIn: The rule here is that I accept friend requests only of people I know well. (i.e. met more than a couple of times) Again, I’ve hardly ever used LinkedIn – so hard to say otherwise.
3) Twitter: Again, my blogs keep my twitter busy. I’ve gone for weeks without opening up my twitter and follow very few.
These are rather simple mental rules that I have around my social networks. I am not a fan of sharing everything I do on these social networks and hence, keep to these rules.
What are your social network principles?
A Learning a Day 