Facebook is a fact of marketing life for just about everyone. It ranks right up there with Google and YouTube for searching. I found that to be true myself yesterday. With an impending storm, rather than searching for weather on Google I searched on Facebook for the Capital Weather Gang, the group from the Washington Post that tracks weather.

 

Recently I got a few questions on handling friend requests. I have been on Facebook a long time and over the years developed some guidelines for how I use Facebook. Do you have guidelines? It is a good idea to put some in place. You can always change them. However, it helps to be clearer on how you will use Facebook. Here are some to consider:

1. Decide if you want to keep your Facebook personal profile page just for your family and close friends. When I started Facebook back in 2008, you only had a personal page. It was not long before the friend tally grew. I had decided early on that I was using this as a “business” portal to let my friends, both business and personal, know what I was doing, again both business and personal. When Facebook introduced Facebook Pages, which are intended for businesses, I had so many “friends” that I decided to continue using the personal page for connecting with business friends. In my case, I also believe it acts as a referral source for business.

 

1. Set parameters on who you decide is your “friend.” This came up relatively early in my Facebook journey. A personal trainer from Pittsburgh asked to be my friend. I wondered what I could possibly have in common with him. We had no friends in common, and I could not see any art connection. He was not wearing a shirt in his picture. That created my “you must be wearing a shirt” rule. What other rules might you create? Perhaps you choose not to friend people who are not really personal friends.

 

1. What if you decide that you do not want to friend someone? Most of you have a Facebook Page. The easiest thing to do is to message the requestor and let them know that your personal page is only for family and close friends. Suggest that they “like” your Business Page and tell them that is where you share all kinds of info on what you are up to. In all likelihood, they are interested in your business side, not what you and your family did last weekend. And, it is possible for you to go back and do this now.

 

1. Someone asked me if it was possible to go back and make adjustments to move everyone to their business page. The answer is yes, just start doing so. You can message people that you are only posting business info on your business page and will be deleting them. Also post this on your personal profile page and encourage people to head over to your business page.

 

1. How about those requests from real strangers? Lately a lot of people are getting requests from people who have no friends in common and no real basis for connection. I think a lot of these come from men trolling Facebook. One of the recent ones I got was from two men with the same first and last name, only reversed. What are the odds? Look at who are friends with these strangers. I was surprised to see a good friend of mine “friend” someone without any other connections. I dropped her a note about it. She had not really even looked, just clicked friend. She removed him.

 

1. One of the other problems is friend requests from people you are already friends with. First you might wonder if you did not friend them after all. Or perhaps they accidentally unfriended you. Perhaps you click “confirm” without even thinking about it. What is likely happening is someone is impersonating your friend. Reasons can vary from hackers trying to collect personal information about you and others, to stalkers who are trying to gather information on your real friend. Whatever the reason, do not add the imposter as a friend, let your real friend know and report this to Facebook.

 

Facebook can be lots of fun and valuable as a business tool. Take the time to figure out how it will work best for you.

 

Please share your experiences on our ICAP Facebook or Google+ pages? By sharing your approach, you may help someone else.

 

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Morna McEver is the founder and CEO of the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals where creative arts entrepreneurs craft business success. Her weekly e-zine offers tips, techniques and inspiration to help you craft business success from your creative arts passion. You can sign up for a FREE subscription at http://www.creativeartsprofessional.com.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2016 at 10:15 am and is filed under facebook, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.