Facebook Friend Requests: Can You Just Say No?

Here’s a question for you: how many Facebook friends do you have? And how many of them are actually friends?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

What happens to many of us as we set up our social media profiles is we have every intention of keeping our online circles limited to close friends, family and possibly our immediate co-workers. Instead, we’re approached by people we never would have invited into our little world – classmates hoping to catch up after many years, former co-workers or business contacts looking to reconnect and probably the most confounding of all, people we may meet in our networking travels and possibly do limited business with who now want to be “our friend.”

Many of us are torn over these decisions – do we accept the friend request, limit what the person sees of our updates or simply click on ignore and pray for the best? We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or worst of all, burn any bridges or potential bridges particularly if there’s prospective business in your future. But at the same time, do I really want Johnny Smith, my one-time real estate agent reading my deep personal thoughts about Michael Buble or learning of my bad shopping habits?

One way you can minimize some of the struggles of Facebook friendships is to build more than one profile. Maybe you have one specifically associated with your career or company, another for your family and yet another for your workplace. Or if that gets to confusing, send your friends to your MySpace page, your business contacts to your LinkedIn profile and those in-between folks to a Facebook page. Keep in mind that people searching for you may still send friend requests to join your little personal group, but if you have a separate professional profile available, you can reject with a comment that recommends they follow you elsewhere. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least you can stay in each other’s orbits without these not-quite-close-friends getting a little too close to your personal business.

Then there’s the dilemma about friending your kids. Ask yourself: is this a genuine opportunity to connect and share information or photos or am I snooping on my kids? And do I really want my kids reading all of my own business or drooling observations about hunky Hugh Jackman? Whether or not to friend really comes down to how old are your children and what is the nature of your relationship? Tweens or teenagers? College students? Married with kids of their own? Be honest and put yourself in their shoes. Is this Facebook friendship a good thing or should you really not ‘go there’ for all parties involved?

No matter how many profiles you establish, always keep in mind that relationships evolve, and the person you allow in your circle today may drift away tomorrow so be somewhat cautious of what you share regardless of which profile – personal or professional. When in doubt, if some matter might be just a little too personal to share with the masses, send a private message through the Facebook or MySpace mail feature. You can still send to multiple friends just like a standard email and then you ensure that a message you may not want to be posted or commented on by uninvolved parties stays between those it affects.

So enjoy your budding friendships and unexpected reunions with long lost loves, favorite classmates or teachers, and past bosses and co-workers, but keep those friends in their appropriate circles so you don’t compromise yourself or your work. And as with anything else said online, think before you type.