Facebook: Personal vs. Professional
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 Question of the day: I've been debating creating a second profile on Facebook solely for professional contacts - it feels weird for editors and other people I don't know well to see pictures of my family, etc, but I don't want to flat-out reject them from my profile. Do you have any advice on how to go about this?
Oy, this is so tricky and every writer/person is going to handle this different. For what it's worth, I considered doing this as well, but my marketing manager at Random House told me that it's generally a waste of time as people end up sending friend requests to both places. (I know that FB says that you can't establish two profiles, but if you use different email addresses, it's certainly easy enough.) My solution was creating a fan page and truly limiting my profile to people I actually know - my test is that I have to recognize their name/our connection without clicking through to see how we might know each other, AND, I also have to feel comfortable with that connection. I.e: would I actually recognize this person on the street? (Figuratively speaking, since I have many online friends who I may not.) :) It's true that nothing you post online can ever be considered truly private, but still, I like take measures to ensure that my profile is as private as I can make it - I'm just not comfortable with people I don't know seeing pictures of my family, etc. (Again, I think it's important to understand that it's still a public domain and act accordingly.)
So to that end, what worked for me is creating the fan page that I mentioned above. Is it embarrassing to ask people to join? Absolutely! But still, it's a good division for me: I can interact (and do interact) with readers, but I don't feel like I have to compromise my privacy. If you're in the position to create a fan page of sorts, that's what I recommend. If you're not, then I don't know what harm the double-profile does, other than it's probably a lot of maintenance and might be a bit of a pain in the ass - deciding who belongs on what page, etc. You can also, as you probably know, divide your friends up into groups, and view them accordingly. For example, I have my college friends in a group, my high school friends in a group, etc, and that helps keep things organized. You can also adjust your privacy settings for each group or each specific person. So if you don't want an editor seeing updates on your weekend, you can allow for that. Anyway you cut it, it's a hassle, but might be worth it to have those online connections with editors, etc.
Folks, how do you handle the personal vs. professional on FB? Any tips for our reader?
Reader Comments (6)
Oh lord... This post is the straw that broke the camel's back. I've been thinking about this issue for a little while, and now I'm taking the time to categorize ALL (700+) of my FB "friends" into categories so I can regulate my privacy settings. Someday I want to implement a separate account or a Fan page for the people I don't really know, but this a first step.
If I may ask, how do you word your request that people join the Fan page instead of Friending you, and how do people generally respond?
I'm especially grateful that my editor is my FB friend (and Twitter follower) because it keeps me careful. I don't post anything I wouldn't want her to see, anything that would affect the way she views me as an author of her publishing company or as someone she wouldn't want to work with. I think of her as my boss, basically. If she weren't my FB friend, I might post more personal or snarky stuff I'd regret. So it works for me!
Allison, I think your solution is terrific. Although I enjoy keeping up with friends and family, I am still careful about what I post on Facebook or Twitter. Even if you aren't a famous author, it's probably a good idea of what you post....if only so that years or months from now you don't find it cringe-worthy!
I think the key question is how much interaction (i.e., sharing photos, having comment threads) you want to have with your professional contacts. If not so much, why not try LinkedIn? You can still post status updates on it. People on LinkedIn have different mentality than on FB. It is not weird or embarrassing to be connected to people you with remote nexus or to ask a contact to introduce you to his or her contact whom you may find interesting.
I do have a FB fan page for my blog (but not so much for professional contacts). Maybe because I am new at this, I find the fan page to be duplicative to my personal FB page. I feel that my FB friends who "like" the fan page are only doing so to indulge me.
EverySixMinutes - that's a very good suggestion. I agree that people use LinkedIn very differently, I certainly do. So if someone isn't comfortable connecting on FB, why not take it to LinkedIn? Great tip.
For my website I use Twitter and Google Buzz and keep Facebook for my close friends and relatives only.