December 26th, 2008
Mitigating the collision course of social networks
* Jennifer Leggio is on vacation
Guest editorial by Michael Gaines
Do you remember Venn diagrams from high school math? Those are the overlapping circles which represent where two groups intersect. Social media circles have started to intersect as well, and keeping them apart may not be as easy as it seems.
If you’re wondering why you may want to keep your social circles separate, consider this scenario: you had a great Saturday night with your friends, maybe drinking, and someone might have put some rather awkward pictures of you on their Facebook account without you knowing. By tagging the pictures with your name, your boss could find this picture on Monday morning. There have been an increasing number of reports of people not getting jobs because of what potential employers find on social networking sites, and at least one person I know personally has been spoken to about what they’ve posted on their Flickr account. It’s become quite difficult to be yourself on the Internet. Who you are outside work might not be who you are at work. If you already have a job where they know you well it may not be an issue, but if you’re looking for a job, drunken pictures of you may not be the best thing to have floating around on the Internet.
Your workplace may not even be the only group you want to keep separate from your social network. It’s possible you may want to prevent people you know personally from seeing that you’re a hardcore gamer. Some people might not want to see messages of what your level progression in your latest gaming addiction is. This social networking “noise” could be another potential reason from separating your circles. People may follow you on FriendFeed or Twitter for some reason, only to see over time that some of the things you write about may become less interesting to them. I’ve personally had people unfollow me because either the gaming friends don’t like hearing about social networking or vice versa.
Next: How to keep the worlds from colliding –>
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Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
For daily updates on Jennifer's activities, follow her on Twitter.
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