It was well over a years worth of hype that I resisted before joining the popular social networking site, Facebook.  One of Facebook’s top competitors, LinkedIn, has been my primary selection of social networking for a few years now.  Through my experiences with these two sites it’s been made certain to me that both have slightly different purposes that can make a huge difference to their users which should be considered when building a network.

LinkedIn has proven itself to me as a worthy networking site that can be very helpful when trying to get a foot in the door.  Vacation pictures, what you’ve recently become a fan of, and what you think about the latest Jon & Kate calamity I need not know of my fellow LinkedIn networkers.  Your professional experiences are typically all I’m interested in and I imagine the feeling is mutual.  LinkedIn has all that is needed (and not much more) to network in a manner that is kind of boring, but nicely suitable for work.  Knowing that most people will probably find little use or excitement of joining my professional network on LinkedIn, I’d prefer to direct them to Facebook if they wish to network with me.  This forces me to ask the following question when building my networks.  Is Facebook really an appropriate way to network with anybody, even acquaintances and co-workers whose relationship with you is strictly professional?
 
What turned me on to Facebook is the fact that I have close friends and family that have scattered throughout the country over the past few years.  Facebook has been able to keep me in touch with these people almost effortlessly.  For those of us that have been less than excited about joining Facebook – it unfortunately seems like the only way to keep current with what you’re friends and family are up to anymore.  Consider my girlfriend who has a printer specifically made to only print high resolution digital photographs.  Since the rise of Facebook, this printer sits under my desk and spends most of its time in dust collection OR foot rest mode.  Who needs to print pictures when you can slap them on Facebook where your network can view them at their leisure for free?  Besides ink is priced as if it’s made of precious rare materials. 

Initially with Facebook it appeared to me that you didn’t have enough control of what information is exchanged on your Facebook page.  Combine this absence of control with the ease of accessibility and a network full of co-workers/professional contacts and you could put yourself into an unfavorable or embarrassing situation.  Luckily you are given the ability to easily remove comments or photos others have placed on your page.  This feature is a necessity and definitely a great idea, but not everyone can (or wants to) monitor their Facebook constantly.  Perhaps your close friend or sibling has just located the baby picture of you naked in the kitchen sink and decided to tag you on it.  Hopefully you’ll get lucky enough to remove this embarrassing content before everyone you’ve befriended has been able to see it.  If you’re anything like me you’re likely to go days without logging in to Facebook, by then you could have earned yourself a new nickname or two that helps ensure that nobody forgets the sight of you and your rubber ducky.  Even if you are careful and conscientious about the content you post on Facebook that certainly does not mean you’re friends and family are.  Unfortunately not everyone follows the good old-fashioned rule regarding the discussion of religion or politics.  I for one don’t want to risk one of my co-workers being offended by a comment one of my friends may have left on my Facebook page about water-boarding or the stimulus plan for example.

It’s situations like these that come to mind when using these two fine networking tools.  Although these sites, and others like them, continue to compete for users they clearly have different purposes and should be treated as if.  In my opinion you just may want to consider that vacation picture of you in a bathing suit OR the one from latest summer cookout where you’re in the background engulfing a bratwurst with mustard on your chin before you start building those networks.

James Bourquin
Click here to read about James.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 5:05 am and is filed under Candidates, Name Generation, Research, Sourcing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.