Halt! Who goes there – friend or fan?

Because your personal facebook profile and your business fanpage are inextricably linked, that can really cause some confusion about how to manage and separate your contacts.

Finding the best way to keep the personal friends on my profile page separate from my business friends and colleagues has been something of a struggle, and I admit I do keep changing my mind.

At first I thought it seemed logical to steer business connections away from my profile page, and invite them to ‘like’ my fanpage. But then I realized that if a business contact makes my fanpage a ‘favourite page’ through their own fanpage, they’re not going to get any of my status updates. Not a very good way of keeping in touch.

I really don’t think there’s a simple answer, and I know the inability to separate personal and business is a sore spot for many people.

Here’s the best solution I have come up with: I created a ‘business’ list within my friends by going to ‘Edit Friends’ and clicking on the option ‘Create a List’. Now I can accept friend invitations from business contacts (and extend them), and share Words By Wendy posts with them. At the same time, by customizing my privacy settings, I can ensure that they aren’t able to see pictures and posts from my personal friends.

Then it’s simple enough to invite them to ‘like’ my business page.

If anyone has any suggestions to add to this, I would love to hear them!

Best wishes to all my ‘business friends’.