Networking blues

When quite a while back, former Bizcommunity.com editor and friend Louise Marsland said I HAD to join Facebook - be in or be out - I jumped to attention and immediately signed up. My 21-year-old son's reaction was "Ma, you joined Facebook - that's so lame..." That, of course, made me feel much better about my choice.

Since then I've joined several other networking groups, including of course the mandatory Twitter where I've tweeted a whole once. This, according to social networking whiz Daniel Munslow, is average for a Twitter user. My life, obviously, is so boring that I've nothing to tweet about.

I mean, really, do you guys want to know that I'm behind deadline on a particular story and I'm about to try and talk my way out of it with an editor or that I really feel like a cup of tea but am too warm in my office to go and make it...? I think not!

But somehow I get regular notices that I'm being followed by various Twitterers... I've been hoping for Stephen Fry or Lance Armstrong but I seem to attract the more mundane Twits.

Which brings me to my gripe about networking in this way.

First of all, when someone requests to be ‘my friend' and join my Facebook, unless they're really close friends or colleagues, I go through no small amount of agonising over whether I should let them join because I could just ignore their postings anyway, or whether they'd be incredibly offended if I pressed ‘ignore', even though I haven't seen them for years or in fact don't know them at all - but they're a friend of a friend who thinks I should know them!

I mean, is it worse to let someone in and then delete them than to ignore them from the outset? You can see my dilemma here.

Lately I've had some particularly strange requests from people who I can't quite fathom out would want to know the inner workings of my Facebook life. I know we are supposed to ‘open up' and network, but I still feel more comfortable doing this over coffee.

And then there's ‘LinkedIn' and other similar platforms. I've joined a couple - again because I didn't want to offend the person who volunteered my name but have I gained anything out of this membership? Zip... In fact, one member of a so-called networking group did bother to contact me to tell me how bad - no, lousy, I think was the word he used - my website was and that he could do a much better job!

Please don't get me wrong. I know that social networking is the way of the future in the business world and for my young offspring whose social life depends totally on Facebook. But I'm still trying to come to terms with the etiquette of it all. So if I've offended any of you by pressing ignore, please don't take it personally - just think of me as network-challenged.