Back in the day when Facebook was a friendly place for college kids to advertise beer-guzzling expeditions, we never knew it would someday be a pan-generational professional tool. The first co-worker friend request—or, even more shocking, the first boss friend request—can put one into a panic about the content of her page.
It’s not just the people with scandalous lives who have to worry about their Facebook pages; it’s also the people with normal lives—normal lives previously kept from their co-workers. In some ways, those days of channeling and choosing the professional image we portray is over; our image now extends to our social networking page, and we just have to deal with it. On the other hand, we don’t have to lose control of our image. Here are a few tips on how to be Facebook friends with co-workers:
1. Sanction them. In your privacy settings, make a group called "colleagues" and put your co-workers and/or professional contacts into it. That way whenever you want to limit your privacy, you can easily select the whole group.
2. Choose limits. What limits you choose might depend on your field and how you use Facebook in it. A good rule is to make sure co-workers cannot see things you do not moderate. For instance, you can’t control what your friends write on your wall; even if it’s not “bad” it becomese a reflection of you and therefore fodder to be judged on in your professional life.
3. Check your limits. Facebook has a useful tool that allows you to view your profile as another person. Unfortunately Facebook can still be tricky—sometimes you have to work hard to make sure you find the privacy controls for things like applications.
4. Don't discriminate. We all have people at work who we think are great outside of work, but that doesn’t mean you should allow them to see more of your profile than other co-workers. What if that person brings up your Facebook status to another co-worker who can’t see it? All the sudden you are in awkward digital office politics.
5. Notice office Facebook culture. Observe how other co-workers and your boss handle Facebook (and other social networking tools). You don’t necessarily have to follow their lead, but it gives you a good idea of what is considered appropriate (as many companies have yet to form policies about it).
6. Don’t get too comfortable. Even when you have the privacy controls, that doesn’t mean you should put photos up of yourself dancing on tables. I don’t allow anyone in the universe to see tagged photos of me or my religious and political views.
I live my life on Facebook so that if one day all of the privacy controls were gone, I’d feel like the world saw me grocery shopping in my sweatpants, not as if I was caught dancing in my underwear. In the mean time, I have less anxiety about what my colleagues think about me if I don’t let them see my wall posts from 2005.
Comments
Can't co-workers and others see when you have restricted them to a limited view? Political and religious views are one thing, but if I logged on and couldn't see my co-worker's wall, photos, etc., I would wonder what they have to hide!
I'm more of a "leave it out in the open" kind of person. I don't set any Facebook privacy settings. If I don't want someone to see it all, co-worker or not, I don't accept their request!
@Christopher - I can respect that! But for those people who want to have their cake and eat it too (in this case have their co-workers and their pictures they hide from them too), I think there are also options.
But I bet we might see so much convergence between work and life that it will be impossible to divide anymore (I'll be writing more about that in the future!).
Ellie, thanks for a great post on this topic. The new(ish) Facebook definitely makes it tricky to adjust some settings and lots of people don't figure it out until after sharing something/s they would rather not have.
Your #6 tip and closing paragraph get right to the heart of social sharing, even beyond our own privacy settings. Not all of us want to know what the "stripper name" would be for old friends. Decorum is the key -- and realizing that whenever you post anything online, it's easy for it to go beyond your control.
@Hunter - Thanks for your comment. I completely agree with you about decorum. I hear Facebook will be unveiling more features soon, so I am interested to see what it does with the privacy controls (and whether it will just makes it more confusing!).
There is a Coworkers app on Facebook for those that want to manage their working relationships separately on Facebook. You can just add people to your professional network if you don't want to be their full fledged friend. Just search for "coworkers" on Facebook.
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