Saturday, April 28, 2012

Small Craft Business: Using Facebook Wisely

I experienced something that took me just a bit by surprise today. One of my Facebook friends posted something that made me think, and I realized I disagreed. So I commented, explaining why I disagreed.


Later on, I saw someone else had commented. I went back to the thread, and the original poster had deleted my post, and had also removed me as a Facebook friend. 


Really? 


This person was a FB friend because of business. I've never met her in person. And she decided to remove me as a friend because I disagreed with her. My comment was not cantankerous, or tacky. It did not contain profanity, nor did it malign anyone. 


"Hmm," I said to myself. And then I thought, "That's not the best move, is it?"


It really isn't. If you are using Facebook for your business, as I do, then you shouldn't remove people as friends. You want as many people as possible to see what you  have to say, right? But sometimes you disagree with these folks, and if you haven't met them, maybe you don't want to follow them at all. 


In that case, keep them as friends, but just unsubscribe. To do this, click on the name, and at the top right it will say "Friends." Next to that, there's a button that says "Subscribed." Click and hold that, and a drop-down menu will appear. At the bottom of the drop-down, click "Unsubscribe."


This way, you are still friends, and they will still see your status updates if they are subscribed to you, but you won't see theirs. Simple, and not to put too fine a point on it, good business. 


Keep your followers. But you don't necessarily have to follow them. 


What do you think? (If you disagree, and aren't a crankypants about it, I promise I won't remove your comment. ;)  )

1 comment:

  1. I have hugely mixed feelings about Facebook ... whether to restrict friends to only people I know (and like), even if not accepting a request means snubbing a professional contact.

    Actually, this doesn't happen a lot, but the most recent request I got was from someone who betrayed a personal confidence years ago. She doesn't know I know, but I've avoided her ever since, even though our paths cross through work.

    If you try to keep Facebook personal, it's as fraught as choosing a wedding guest list.

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