On Facebook, the Friendship’s Mutual (Errrr… Sometimes)

As Facebook has grown – now over 350 million members – a presence there has become a bigger part of people’s social media business strategy. This can create a challenge for those who want to keep their private and public lives separate.

Because of the different ways to use Facebook,  not all “friendships” are the same… and things can get confusing and awkward if you don’t have your own guidelines and goals clearly defined. 

What follows is how I’ve approached these challenges, as well as a few possible ways to deal with them. This post is long because I’m spelling my thinking out in hopes we can have a conversation, as these issues are not going to go away on Facebook or anywhere.

Pages and Profiles and Groups (Oh, My!)

Facebook offers three major options for having a presence on the site: Pages, Groups, and personal profiles, all nicely explained in this Web Worker Daily article.

Most of us have personal profiles – it’s there we have friends, do status updates, load pictures and all that good stuff. Many authors, artists, and companies have Pages, too: folks sign up to become “fans” of the Page.

For those of us who write for children, a Page can be a place to send younger readers who ask to be “friends” on Facebook, so for that reason alone, a Page makes sense. Also, a Page is great for the many people describe themselves as fans and want to connect, but would never ask to be friends:

Fan Pages can serve as a hub for individual books or projects, too. For example, I could have a Happy Accident Page to continue social media conversations rather than a catch-all Greg Pincus fan page (charter member: Mom!).

From a networking or building connection point of view though, Pages begin at a deficit: by definition it’s not a relationship of equals even if you’re friendly and active there.

Simply put, being someone’s fan is different than being someone’s friend. That said…

“Friend” vs. Friend

The word “friend” has an emotional connotation that’s hard to escape. Think back to childhood and remember what it was like when someone said “You’re not my friend!” It’s got impact.

If you plan to use Facebook simply to keep up with close connections, then this doesn’t matter – the word fits.

If, like me, you use Facebook for to connect with peers and colleagues, too, the word “friend” in this context has to mean something else.

I nabbed the screen capture to the left last week – an “add as friend” suggestion from Facebook for a person with whom I have 133 mutual friends (all fellow children’s book business people). Yet I not only don’t know the person, I’d also never even run into his name before, online or off.

Clearly, this is not friendship as it’s usually defined – it’s a connection or potential one. And while I wouldn’t “add as friend” myself, I would accept a friend invitation from that person (who hasn’t asked… probably for the same reasons I haven’t!).

This method of using Facebook works for me but raises two common questions: “doesn’t this mean that you share private information with total strangers?” and “why not connect with these people some other way?”

Living In Public

Each of us has a different comfort level with what we are willing to post and with whom we are willing to share what we post.

For me… I have never used Facebook to share more than I was comfortable with the whole world knowing. It doesn’t mean I’m not personal there. I am. But I believe that anything said online can become public pretty easily, whether the initial mention was to a closed network or not.

Also, I knew that the longer I  was on Facebook, I’d connect with people who might as well be strangers: elementary school friends who I haven’t seen in 20 or more years; college friends not seen since graduation.

My goal on Facebook is to have a network in place – connections who are interested in me and in whom I’m interested, too. I get to see and celebrate lots of good news this way, get to know a lot of people better, and, occasionally, get my own stuff seen by a big group of other folk.

With those thoughts in mind, it was easy for me to jump to including peers and colleagues among my friends: anything I say on Facebook is fit for the world, though geared towards people who have a connection to me, and I wanted a bigger, though still controlled, group.

It also took care of another challenge when it comes to peers and colleagues, particularly as Facebook has grown bigger…

I’m Your What?

Let’s say you’ve gone to a bunch of conferences or local events in your field and become close enough to many of your peers to become Facebook friends.

Now think of  the case of someone else in your chosen career who shares 15 mutual friends with you… and asks to be YOUR friend.

You have four clear options: ignore the friendship request, accept it, send a note and get to know the person, or send a note and ask the person to join your Fan Page.

Ignoring a request, particularly one without a message and from someone you don’t know, is always a viable option. Sending a note saying “uh, who are you?” is also good… but in this case, you know who they are: someone in your business.

For me, I couldn’t suggest to a person like that that they become a “fan” of mine. Were I a more established author, I think it might be easier to direct people that way (like me being a fan of Katherine Paterson).

But I’m not established, and I also know that my business is one that thrives on connectedness, so this challenge was going to come up. Based on my goals, I chose broadening my definition of friend. I also know my guidelines for who is a “friend” in this context.

Lists to the Rescue?

Beyond setting up a second personal profile to use just for “true friends,” (which breaks Facebook’s terms of service and could lead to deletion of all your accounts), there is one tool designed to help with these challenges: Facebook’s Friend Lists.

In short, you can create lists of friends – fellow writers, know ‘em in real life, third cousins I have to connect with for family’s sake – and then change your privacy settings so that different lists see different things (no photos, no updates, etc).

Likewise, you can determine what you see in your stream from each of these lists. At first blush, this seems like a solution to every issue mentioned above, but there are a few things to consider.

First off, your whole friend list is always visible to the world at large, so putting someone on a smaller list doesn’t change the “mutual friend” connections, and it doesn’t address the “I’m Your What?” situation fully. Also…

Let’s say you put all your colleagues on one list and use privacy settings to keep them from seeing updates (since those are really for your friends). But now you have news that you want to celebrate or an event you want them to know about, so you suddenly get in touch.

In general, that doesn’t go well, and I suspect you’ve been on the receiving end of contact like that and not enjoyed it. To build relationships that matter, you can’t only appear when you need something.

Lists might still be useful for you to identify how you know each person you’ve connected with, but the challenge is in knowing how to communicate with each group, and doing so consistently so that you’re building a relationship. Otherwise, why are you “friends” at all?

And That Leaves Us… Where?

No one says you have to use Facebook in any way for business. Still, even if you don’t, you’re going to face all these same questions because others do… and people you wouldn’t call friends offline will ask to be your friends online.

The key is to know your goals and have guidelines that you follow. And know that you, not the network or any one else’s ideas, control how you’re going to use Facebook.

That’s my thinking, anyway, and as I said, I’d love to hear from you. How do you deal with the challenges? Are there solutions I’ve missed? Funny stories you can tell? These issues aren’t going away, so I do hope you’ll dive in….

(blob with magnifying glass image by marktoon)

Tagged as: Facebook, friends, goals