Be careful of blurring business, social lines

It's important for new users to know ‘what they're getting themselves into' right from the start and actually it doesn't just apply to Facebook but any website in general available to the public.

If used right, it will work in your favour. If not, you could cloud your ‘professional appearance'. It's long been a saying of not mixing business with pleasure and, of course, we all know what that means, but when we start to blur the lines between our business and social lives we open ourselves up to the unknown. Maybe it's a good thing; maybe it could attribute to a more personal approach on how we do business?

A client came to me for an online marketing proposal after being burnt (in her opinion) by several other online marketing companies. Now that's a topic for another day, but I mentioned Facebook and the social media marketing thing to her. Being from a marketing background, she duly confirmed that she's heard of it, but that she was wary about it.

Take note

After more probing she mentioned that her daughter keeps on checking up on what her ex-boyfriend is doing and that she kept on complaining to her mother that the ex now did this, and now that. It made her wary, which is a good thing, but it's also something that new users should take note of when using a public social platform like Facebook.

KNOW who you're sharing information with and CHOOSE carefully what you share.

I actually think it's high time that Facebook distinguishes between friends and business contacts and that one should have the ability to share specific profile information (not just a limited profile as at the moment) with these contacts. You should, for instance, be able to choose exactly what information from your profile you would like to share with business contacts. Maybe I haven't played around with it enough to realise that this is possible, but I haven't come across it yet.

For the public exhibitionists who wish to share their whole life story it remains bliss. I must however confess, it IS addictive. So much so that I'm starting to keep it open in a tab permanently. The value of such a widely used platform is endless, for business and for pleasure.

Just always take care on what you put up there, because your ex is reading!