Should You Friend Your Boss on Social Media?
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I saw a reader threadjack a while ago that I thought deserved a bigger discussion: the eternal question, should you friend your boss on social media?
We haven't discussed this question in years! Back in 2015 when answering a reader mail about whether you should friend you boss on Facebook, we noted:
For my $.02, I agree with most of the experts: Privacy controls are HUGE here.
I keep a variety of different friend lists anyway — one very small one for my BFFs, a general one for my friends, one for parent-friends (so I don’t annoy my single/childless friends with a bunch of baby questions), and so forth…
Meanwhile, back in 2008 (aww), when a junior associate got a friend request from an 8th-year and wondered whether she should friend her superior, we noted she could just ignore the request entirely: “if he asks about it later you could lie and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t checked that account in ages.'”
Of course, friending a boss on LinkedIn isn't any less complicated, because LinkedIn will sometimes show people if you're looking at other company profiles, if you've recently friended recruiters, and other job-hunt activity. Here's our last deep dive into the best LinkedIn settings for job seekers, including tips (and screenshots!) on how to 1) turn off your activity updates, 2) browse other people's profiles anonymously, and 3) keep your group activity private.
After all, as we all learned from the Dolly Parton challenge, it's ok to have different personalities on the different sites.
As for the other social media — Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, etc. — I think it really depends what you're posting (e.g., your political views — an issue came up in a recent threadjack) and what you're liking.
I will also note that if you worry that you've got some interests or opinions that conflict with your “personal brand” — or are just more information than you're comfortable sharing with everyone you know (like if you're following people who post about mental health, sobriety, relationship health, entrepreneurial stuff, specific diagnoses, etc.), it's ok to have a Twitter account or Instagram account or whatever that is mostly anonymous, and not connected with a “public” email. For example, one friend of mine joined Twitter primarily for Star Wars discourse but stays for the autism community.
So, readers, do tell: Do you think you should friend your boss on social media? Do you think the answer to that depends more on the particular platform or on the topics you post about?
Linkedin only. But I keep my social very private generally.
Got rid of Facebook and wish everyone would do the same, so no, def not friending my boss anywhere.
ha! Same. Best decision I ever made.
Depends on how you use it. For me, FB is a collection of most of the people I know, a reminder for wishing people happy birthday, and a place I pretty much post only things I’d be fine with appearing on the front page of the NYTs (not that they’d care about my dog). So yes, my boss is on there as are tons of people I work with, family, etc. I’m of the opinion that since I control what I put out there it doesn’t really matter.
+1 – I almost never post anything on Facebook and so feel okay adding my boss there.
Yep, this 100%. I have a similar policy on instagram (sorry for the dog picture spam guys), but use the “close friends” feature for things that are…for friends.
Nah. If I got along well with someone, I’ll friend them when we no longer work together, but I generally don’t connect with the people I work with on social media, aside from LinkedIn.
Nope. Left a workplace where lots of folks were connected by social media; current workplace almost no one is and I like this much better.
I go a step further and block my boss (and chain upwards, yay corporate) of bosses on social so they can’t even see I exist! Solves the whole problem.
+1. I have a general rule that I do not friend coworkers (that includes bosses) on Facebook or Instagram until I leave a job. Once I leave, we can be friends on social media. Otherwise, no, and I will go through and pre-emptively block people I definitely do not want to get friend requests from, or who might see something I am tagged in even if we are not directly connected (I live in one of those small “everyone knows everyone” cities). I very rarely post on Facebook and am not that active on Instagram either, but I have friends who live their whole lives on social media and there’s a non-zero chance I will get tagged in something public.
The exception to this is LinkedIn because I only post content on LinkedIn I am comfortable with my entire professional network seeing. It doesn’t bother me if my boss sees that stuff.
Just realized it’s our anniversary – husband forgot too – any ideas for something last minute? Agh.