When Kelly McCausey of WahmTalkRadio recently blogged about giving up on Facebook for business, I immediately unfriended all of my business contacts there.
When I first started a Facebook profile, my aim was totally to use it for online business networking.
Then my old friends, people I hadn’t seen since my teen years, started to find me. It was fun reconnecting with people I hadn’t seen in a decade or longer. In addition, family members got on Facebook and it was fun to chat that way.
I felt weird about trying to combine the two. Would business contacts think it unseemly if I updated about personal things?
Not necessarily. I certainly mention personal events on Twitter.
But then Facebook changed their interface, and I found it nearly impossible to keep up. I was missing the stuff that I really enjoyed most about Facebook.
I was only interested in the personal aspect of Facebook at that point, but I felt funny about unfriending business contacts.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Kelly’s post gave me the courage to go ahead and do it.
Now, when I look at my Facebook home page, it’s not confusing and overwhelming. I don’t get sucked in, I can see how my peeps are doing with a glance.
I had around 80 friend requests that I had put off and put off and put off handling- with associated guilt!
I couldn’t bring myself to friend these people, even though I enjoy working with some of them or connecting with them on Twiiter. The procrastination was due to the fact that I didn’t really want to use Facebook in this way.
And now I have none. And it feels great!
What about you? Has your use of Facebook changed? Why or why not? Do you mix business with pleasure when it comes to social media?
Tags: social media
I’m creating a facebook fan page for business. Right now the 2 are combined but like you I just feel it doesn’t work on Facebook like it does on Twitter.
I feel ya. I only have family and friends on my facebook page and will keep it that way.
Nell
Carrie, you’ll be glad you did
I know I am. I enjoy Facebook so much more now!
Sounds like a great idea! I think I probably wouldn’t do it just because I have recently run across two very awesome professional opportunities that required a high number of friends on social media sites. I think some companies are putting a lot of stock in the number of friends on Facebook and Twitter. I would be afraid to unfriend people for that reason.
Appreciate your info and perspective on this. I did create a seperate page for my blog and networked it so I have some seperation between my personal stuff on Facebook and business.