What are some strategies I can use?

Start with real friends

This seems pretty simple but sometimes, especially when you are new to Social Media, we can forget about real friendships.

Sometimes, you can focus more on increasing how many ‘friends or followers’ you have instead of working out if they are someone you would want to spend time with in real life.

Doing this from the beginning can avoid a lot of online issues.

Below are some things to keep in mind when deciding who you will connect with online.

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Know your friends

When you receive a friend request, ask yourself if you actually know the person.

First up, would you randomly walk up to a total stranger, and show them a picture of you with your gorgeous baby cousin?  Or hanging out at the beach?

You probably wouldn’t, but a lot of people accept friend requests from friends of friends they hardly know, or strangers who happen to know someone they know.

Being on Social Media doesn’t mean you have create a whole new set of rules for what is ok.

It should be the same as our expectations offline.

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Friend Requests

When you receive a friend request, whether it is from a stranger or from your Great Aunt Marjorie who still sees you as an angelic 7 year old,  you have a number of choices.

Ignore it

Simply look at the friend request and do nothing about it.

This also gives you a chance to sleep on it and decide whether you really want to accept them or not.  However, if you really need to take time to consider whether or not you want them to see your posts then they probably aren’t someone you should be accepting anyway.

Facebook have even helped you out, instead of totally rejecting a request (which can make you feel pretty bad) , you can simply hit “Not now,” popping it neatly away in “hidden requests” for you to forget about (or deal with later).

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On Facebook, you can accept it and then make a custom list

If you don’t feel comfortable ignoring the friend request and leaving it hanging there (or doing that would cause issues you want to avoid), you can accept them and then create a custom list that they are not on…

This does take a bit of work.   Be prepared.

  1. If you don’t already have a Limited Profile list, click on “more” next to “Lists” in the left-hand menu column and then click “Create a list.”
  2. Name it “Limited Profile,” “People who I don’t want to see everything I post,” or whatever you choose.
  3. Go to “privacy settings” under the arrow that’s always on the upper right.
  4. Click on “edit settings” next to “How you connect,” and, next to the last option (“Who can see Wall posts by others on your profile?”), click “custom” and then provide the list name under the option “Hide from.”
  5. Now accept the request from the person who you don’t really want to be your friend, hover your mouse over “Friends” and select your custom list from the drop-down menu.

You have to go through another whole lot of steps  to block your photo albums, for example

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Delete the Request and Own Up

Sometimes, it might be better to reject the invitation and then choose some kind words to explain why.

Give the person you turned down a careful excuse the next time you see them in person (or get them on the phone).

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Just Reject them and move on

If it is a request from an ex or someone that you would not want to talk to in real life,  a  stranger or simply someone you don’t know, hit DELETE  and move on.

Use it as a reason to clean up your accounts

If you really don’t want Great Aunt Marjorie or your new boss at the part time job you just started to see what is on your Social Media accounts, it might be time to go through them with a critical eye and do some deleting.

Something to keep in mind,  Don’t put anything on Social Media that you wouldn’t want your great aunt or new boss seeing, even if you have rejected their friend request, these things still have a way of causing trouble…

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