But Are You Really My Friend?

Posted by techgirl

Posted: January 23, 2009 - 5:32 am

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The term "friend" no longer means what it used to. With the proliferation of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, "friend" is now a verb and a "friend" can mean someone you don't even know but who you are connected to in MySpace.

So with so many new "friends," how do you deal with them? And how do you properly "friend" other people? Here are some tips.

1. Define your Personal Friending Policy. Before you start inviting people to be your social networking friend, come up with a few reasons why you'd friend someone. Perhaps they are friends with someone you know or respect. Maybe they are doing something that is of interest to you. You should have valid reasons why you invite someone to connect with you on a social network.

2. Give a reason when inviting someone to friend. When you send out a social networking friend invitation, make sure to include a sentence about why you want to be their Facebook friend or MySpace friend. You can even say something as simple as "I admire your work."

3. Friends don't spam friends. While there is a temptation to broadcast everything you can think of to your suddenly captive audience of "friends," be strategic and be kind. There is so much noise on the Information Highway these days that you could lose friends quickly by abusing their attention.

4. Don't accept every friend invitation. In the same way you should be discriminating with your real life friends, your virtual social networking friends should be picked with similar care. When someone invites me to be their social networking friend, I immediately go to their profile and read a little about them or read what they post or tweet. I don't accept every invitation.

5. Organize your friends. Many social networks let you group friends by category. In Facebook, for example, I have my Second Life Friends, my Business Friends, my Real Life Friends, and my Only Social Networking Friends.

Overall, just because you can have hundreds or thousands of friends doesn't mean they are worthwhile. Be selective, be polite and be friendly!

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