In this series I’m looking at my experiences using social media as a business professional. In this entry I examine the rules and policies I personally use regarding Facebook.
In the introduction to this series of blog entries, I asked several questions regarding my use of particular social media services, and how I manage the intersection of my personal and professional lives in them. Here I’m going to look specifically at Facebook. This is the way I use the service and may or may not be how you do or should use it yourself.
Google+ is similar to Facebook in many ways, and I do have an account. I don’t use it actively, however, so I’ve excluded it from this multi-part discussion.
Who will I follow?
Of all the social networking services, I’m most restrictive in who I “friend” on Facebook. With almost no exceptions, the people I friend are my relatives, friends, people with whom I’ve worked, and others that I’ve met and care about following the twists and turns of their lives.
I don’t offer to friend people who work for me, but will consider it if they friend me. I don’t friend people for whom I work.
Since I’m more willing to have political discussions on Facebook, I may not friend someone who I know only peripherally yet will argue vociferously with me.
I very much enjoy having a Facebook friend who I may not know very well in real life, but who puts up funny or thought-provoking material.
This is obvious, but Facebook is a great way of staying touch with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues when we are separated by miles, years, and live events. That said, I’m not friends with everyone from high school who is also on Facebook, for example.
Who will I try to get to follow me? Who will I block?
New people show up on Facebook all the time. As I see them, I may friend them. I may look for new people to add by looking at the lists of friends of friends.
I do not try to friend people I meet in business customer meetings. I use LinkedIn for that.
I used to have some people for whom I worked on my friends list, but I blocked my content from them. Eventually I decided that is was easier to just unfriend them. I don’t think my bosses need to see my Facebook content and when I add it.
In some cases I do block people from seeing my content, but this is usually in times of high social stress such as elections, school shootings, and civil liberties events.
How much will I say in my profile about myself?
I have basic contact information on Facebook but not my home address. Otherwise, I use the living room analogy: if you and I are speaking in my living room, you’ll see photos of my wife and kids, pet my cats, and we may decide to do an activity together.
I’m happy to give you my phone numbers or my email addresses. We can also chat about college and where we’ve worked. I don’t expect you to wander around the house, look in the closets and dressers, and go through my personal papers.
In a similar way, I share that sort of profile information with the people I trust to be my friends on Facebook.
What kinds of status updates will I post? How often will I post?
Yes, I post cat photos, but not all the time.
I would estimate that perhaps only 20% of what I post on Facebook relates to what I would call business or professional content. Generally, my content is related to who I am, not what I do for a living. I lead the math department at IBM Research, but I am a mathematician, so I’ll post some math-related items because I find them interesting and hope my friends might as well.
Since IBM is a large company and has hundreds of thousands of customers, I have to be careful about what I say about a business, even if I am a consumer of their products or services. It’s not uncommon for me to think something like “after I retire, I’m going to say what I really think of so-and-so’s labor practices.” This does not completely eliminate my posting or sharing content that expresses negative sentiments about a company, but it moderates my thinking about it.
Conversely, if I had a great consumer experience, I happy to tell my friends about it.
I probably average 1 to 3 Facebook updates a day. When I started using Twitter I did 5 to 10 updates daily there, but that number has fallen off.
When will I share content posted by others?
Most of the content I share comes from Facebook pages I “like,” such as that from the New York Times. If a friend puts up a link or a great image, I may share that. I don’t use Facebook as the collection point for work-related links to articles, but rather use the Daily Links category on my blog for that (example).
How political, if at all, will I be in my postings?
I’m most political on Facebook, but less so than my wife. I do a lot more “likes” of political postings by others with which I agree than direct posting.
How much will I disclose about my personal details and activities in my postings?
This is related to the profile question and response above, along with the living room analogy.
As I said about Twitter, I don’t tell my friends every place I go. I may tell friends where I was last week, however. I try to avoid the “I’m not home, so come rob my house” posting syndrome.
Another element of posting about travel is that it may tip people off to why I am on the road and who I’m going to meet. Here’s a little quiz. If I tell you I am visiting the following cities, which companies or government organizations am I likely to be visiting: Brussels; Redmond, Washington; Redwood Shores, California; Walldorf, Germany. (The IBM equivalent would be Armonk, New York.)
On what sorts of posts by others will I comment?
I have rules about this, I just wish I followed them more often. My children would prefer I did not add comments to their Facebook postings or activities. Adding a “Congratulations!” comment is almost always ok, as is a “Hope you feel better!” one.
With some friends, we seem to have developed a particular style of brief chatting that mimic what we would say if we lived or worked closer together.
The dumbest thing I ever do and I simply must stop is to respond to a comment on a friend’s posting, where the comment comes from someone I do not know. If it’s a simple agreement, that’s fine. If it’s to argue a political point, that’s going to cause me angst.
There are a lot of trolls out there, and I have to avoid feeding them.
I really wish Facebook would allow me to not see comments from specific people that I wish to block. I don’t follow these people and I don’t want to see anything they write.
What’s my policy about linking to family, friends, or co-workers?
If someone asks me not to link to them, I won’t. It’s mostly my children who have said this. I typically do not link to someone unless they have commented on a posting of mine. If I want to draw their attention to something, I’ll send them a personal message.
Blog entries in this series:
Very long time readers may recall that 
