Attached is an interesting article on “friending” ettiquette on Facebook. I am in my forties and some of my friends are just learning about Facebook. Social networking and social media is a large part of the work I do, and therefore, I am very familiar with a number of social networking sites including Facebook.
Personally, I think it’s up to the individual to decide who to friend and who not to friend People have different reasons for joining Facebook. Some people want to network and make new contacts. Others may want to maintain contact with old friends and others may have different motivations. If someone wants to connect with you and you don’t feel comfortable, there is nothing wrong with archiving the message.
I believe this is also acceptable on other social networking sites. Let’s take twitter, for example. I follow everyone who follows me. They’ve expressed an interest in learning about me and that makes me interested in learning about them. Not everybody shares this opinion and that’s ok with me. It’s a free world. We’re all different and we all have different viewpoints. That’s what makes life interesting.
Some people will follow others on twitter and then unfollow when the other party doesn’t reciprocate. Personally, I don’t worry about this issue, but others have a right to their opinions and I respect that.
For me, I don’t take it personally if I decide to follow someone and that person doesn’t reciprocate. They may be busy or their agenda may not fit with mine. Who knows? It’s really not that important to me. I believe that If I have enough interesting things to contribute and give enough of myself to others, plenty of people will choose to follow me.
Here is my twitter contact. If you want to follow me, I will follow you back. If you decide not to follow me, that’s ok too. Oh, here are some pretty cool people I’d recommend following off the top of my head. Chris Brogan, Sarah Evans, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Mark Carter, Liz Strauss, Jeremiah Owyang, Ricardo Bueno, and Connie Bensen.
Filed under: current events, lifestyle | Tagged: friends, John Patrick Kreiss, lifestyle, social networking
