Girls(and Boys) Just Want To Have Fun

I have been giving a lot of thought to dropping Facebook for personal use. Don’t get me wrong, it is really fun. Everyone knows girls (and boys) just want to have fun! I had originally joined with the idea of using it just for business, as I do with Twitter, LinkedIn, and many others, but slowly found that all my friends were on Facebook. We started conversing about our personal lives. I had a few business consultants say it was good to let your customers see the more “playful” side of you.

I felt it was getting too personal, and I now make sure that I don’t connect with anyone that I have a business connection with. I am in the process of opening a business only account on Facebook for just that reason.

Still how safe are we even if we only let “real life” friends connect? When you Google someone how much can they see that was posted on Facebook? Can they see that your friend sent you a virtual Margarita, or can they see pictures of you in your casual boating wear? Also, did you know that some of the apps (games) on Facebook are actually collecting data about you to resell? See the article: http://bit.ly/3VZBOW

I use Twitter almost exclusively for business. Some of the tweets I see from others make me wonder if people realize that it is on the internet forever; cached away on some Yahoo search just waiting to pop up on a prospective employer’s search. Yes, Virginia, girls(and boys) just want to have fun, but they also need a good business reputation.

Comment by Steve Sill on July 28, 2009 at 1:51am: Yes... everything that Rayanne said.

Comment by Ambrish Kochikar on July 28, 2009 at 3:08am: Even as we all read and maybe learn through our personal experiences or shared experiences that the line between personal and professional, social and business networking is slowly beginning to blur, it seems to me that as a professional myself, I'd rather know less about a contact's personal life, or just as much as they would care to share over a telephone conversation than have too much information about their personal life (which is common experience on a platform such as facebook). Then again, it might just be me not 'getting' the social networking phenomenon to begin with. :) I think LinkedIn and professional Twitter accounts or affiliations to blogs are all perfectly meaningful and resourceful ways to communicate with your professional network in a more open and share-worthy manner.