Not long ago, I made a prediction that we’re nearing a social media bubble with fans, friends and followers. In 2007 and 2008, even the better part of 2009, the more friends you had, the better it looked to your network. Something had to give, though. I see MSNBC has finally defined this prediction with one word.
The reason why 668 friends do not look so good anymore is because too many people know about your business, who quite frankly you don’t talk to enough, or anymore. Let’s face it, not everyone needs to know what you are thinking or doing - it’s a priviledge you provide. Unfriending provides that control over your network, messages and content.
The same applies to business FB fan pages. If competitors start stalking your page on FB and becoming fans just to see what you are doing, you have a choice to make. The key is to monitor what conversations start on a page, or what feedback you’re gaining from your status updates, fan updates, comments, photo albums, etc.
My other favorite word lately in the Twitter sphere, is “hashtags.” Their purpose is to enable Twitter users to search for tweets by placing a hash # next to a word phrase. Especially good to know for hotels on Twitter, who want to search competitor’s deals, tweets, and trends.
Tags: hashtags twitter, hotels and unfriending, twitter and facebook PR tools, unfriend, unfriending on facebook, word of the year 2009
I don’t know much about hashtags,but I agree with unfriending.Much unfriending is going around, and it doesn’t make sense to have people as friends you don’t really talk to, or you don’t want them to know what you’re up to. Harder to do with Twitter, since anyone can follow you (unless you have protected updates).
There is another option, since unfriending can be viewed as an affront and cause an unnecessary rift. You can change your facebook settings so that the bare minimum is revealed to those folks who don’t fall in the “friends” category. You may have clients on your page or relatives, and the last thing you need them to see is a photo post from the weekend, where you look a bit tanked.