Mind Your Manners When Friending on Facebook

I received a bunch of friend requests on Facebook yesterday after my article on tweaking your privacy settings and utilizing friend lists in Facebook went up on Mashable. This is awesome and I love meeting new people, and it makes total sense to friend me on Facebook since that’s what I talk about so much, but I have one little tiny favor to ask: please tell me who you are, how I know you or where you found me and why you’re friending me.

Be friendly with that Facebook friend request

I accept nearly every request and use those handy friend lists and tactics to organize you all accordingly (I share pretty much everything with everyone, but it helps me keep Facebook from being overwhelming), but I’d like to get a little introduction before we commit to this friendship. It’s like a handshake before a job interview, or dinner before a kiss.

Yes, I’m being a little overdramatic, but you know what I’m getting at. Introduce yourselves! A simple, “Hi, I follow you on Twitter and would like to be friends on Facebook” is all it takes. It saves me the time of finding out who we have in common and if you’re a newly married friend from high school, random acquaintance I met at a conference or fellow Facebook fanatic who just wants to keep up with my obsessive picture tagging.

E-communications still require a little social etiquette

As much as I love social media and probably prefer communicating via the web in most instances, there is something to be said for a little bit of old-fashioned etiquette and manners being applied to the digital world. So please, feel free to friend me, but unless you want to end up in the dreaded “Don’t Know” friend list, tell me who you are!

I know I‘m not alone in this feeling, and it can be applied to a variety of other sites as well. Follow the same protocol with LinkedIn and MySpace (if you still use it).

On Twitter, you might want to get in the habit of sending a “Hello, I’m following you on Twitter because ____________” or responding to something the user says soon after you begin following them . This will increase your chances of a reciprocal follow back, because it helps someone place you and alerts them to you as a specific new follower instead of lumping you into a bucket with everyone else.