Social Media and Coworkers: Whom Do You Link With, and Where?
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I was updating an older post on how to end an internship and came across some old advice I'd given on not asking superiors you barely knew to “Link In” with you because that was tantamount to a referral. We also had a ton of posts back in the day about what to do if your boss sends you a friend request on Facebook. We haven't talked about either in a long time, so let's discuss!
Here are the questions:
- How are you using LinkedIn (if at all)?
- How are you using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (if at all)?
- Do you have rules about which coworkers you'll “friend” or link in?
- (In life, do you have rules about who you'll friend or link with?)
For my own $.02:
I primarily use LinkedIn for professional contacts; I'll also link with good friends. I think it's a lot less “tantamount to a referral” than it was a zillion years ago, just, to me, I like to keep LinkedIn in that professional zone. I don't push content to LinkedIn, nor do I share any thoughts in that public space. I don't even check the public space for people to share thoughts. I kind of use LinkedIn like I use Home Depot: I only go in if I need something, and I don't browse once I get there.
{related: the best LinkedIn settings for job hunting}
I still use Facebook, and Insta, and TikTok, but I use them in different ways.
For Facebook, I have my privacy settings set so that only real friends can see my posts — accordingly, I'm not overly protective over whom I befriend on Facebook, and I'm friends with a ton of neighbors and parents I know through kid-related things. (I also don't post a ton, to be honest!) The biggest value I get out of Facebook is the various special interest groups I've joined, whether it's for my neighborhood, for kid-related issues, or for blogging issues. I tend to use the groups as a really specialized Google — if I'm looking for something very specific, I'll check there first. (For example, there was recently a big switch for Google Analytics, and when I was searching for info on GA4 I went directly to the various blogging groups I'm in on Facebook.)
(For work, I do push content to the Corporette and CorporetteMoms Facebook pages and pay a fair amount for third-party services… Our reach is super minimal unless I boost a post, though, so I really only do the bare minimum there. They recently changed the settings so that I can't share a fun meme post with either the Corporette or CMoms Pages without changing my login info and so forth, which ends up being a huge pain.)
I use Instagram both personally and professionally. Professionally, I push content there very rarely, although I'm trying to be better about it. On my personal account, I follow a lot of food bloggers, exercise bloggers, and a few style/shopping/decorating content creators. The “perfect curated Instagram” idea has always kind of bugged me, though, so I don't use it very often — maybe a few times a week I'll look at my feed. My real-life friends are largely absent from Instagram, though — for a while I followed a neighbor who was posting outfits and it felt truly weird, so I unfollowed her.
TikTok I use almost entirely personally, although I do have an account for Corporette there, and am saving a few things that I might share in that capacity at a later date. (We'll see.) I vastly prefer the way that TikTok is messy and real compared to Instagram — yes, even with the filters, which truly are insane if you haven't looked at them. But everything feels off the cuff and easy. Kate and I send each other things via TikTok, but the majority of my other friends aren't there.
Again, I see TikTok as a specialized search engine – if I want to know something quickly I can usually find fifteen different brief clips talking about that very thing; it's a very fast way to learn. (I never got into YouTube much, but vastly prefer the brief TikTok length to the interminably long YouTube videos.) I follow a zillion people there, including people talking about fashion, design, diet, cooking, exercise, gardening, books, and more. There is very little overlap between who I follow on Tiktok and who I follow on Instagram, for some reason.
I use LTK as a counterpart to TikTok — if there's someone whose style I like on TikTok it's a pain and a half to click the link to go to her LinkTree or whatnot; instead I'll just go to the LTK app and see immediate product links to everything she's posted. I don't use LTK hardly at all professionally, although I ought to get into it more!
Readers, how about you — how are you using LinkedIn these days, and who are you linking in with? How about Facebook, if you're still using it?
(Full disclosure: I still own a bit of stock in Facebook, and previously owned stock in LinkedIn. For more details see here.)
Stock photo via Stencil.
For context, I’m early 40s, and have a senior position in-house at a large financial services company. I don’t use “recreational” social media anymore (I deleted Facebook, IG, Twitter, etc.) because I ultimately felt like they weren’t good for me. And privacy has started to feel like sort of the greatest luxury there is to me.
I do have LinkedIn, but I do not post anything, don’t comment on posts, etc. I will connect with anyone that I know professionally on LinkedIn, but I don’t accept connection requests from people I’ve never met (even if they send an intro note). For me it’s mostly helpful as a way of staying connected with people as they move jobs, since I may not have a work email for them anymore.
I’m similar. I still have FB and Insta but stopped posting anything of my own and it was weird at first and then very freeing.
I will connect with people I’ve met on LinkedIn. Most of the requests from strangers are people trying to sell me something and I just ignore those.
+1 this is me too
also about OP’s age and in house at a large tech company (ironically) – similarly, I deleted all my social media other than LI almost five years ago and haven’t looked back. Even when I used it, I never posted, just browsed other people’s posts and inevitably it just made me feel bad about myself. I will connect with others on LI but do not read posts, post myself, or seek to add people (just add people who add me). That said, I found my current job which I love through a cold DM on LI to a fellow alum of my law school – so it definitely still works for job-hunting!
I love LinkedIn. It’s been invaluable to keep up with former colleagues and I get a ton of great ideas from following thought leaders in my field. I also have a marketing adjacent role, and it’s been great testing different approaches to covering content with my own posts to see what works best. With Facebook, other than keeping track of birthdays, my biggest interaction is with a (private) hobby group that I belong to. I’ve met so many wonderful people and gotten great advice that way. A bunch of members also get together in real-life once a year, which has also made it fun (I literally went to a meeting where I knew no one IRL beforehand but instantly was among friends). My former dear boss and a couple of colleagues have connected with me on Instagram. I like that I can still see their kids’ photos and pet pictures. I feel like it has helped keep us connected (if I wasn’t working remotely, I know we would be having IRL brunches and whatnot though–we were that close of a team). When my dog died, my boss instantly knew and texted me and was a huge source of support. I guess I get way more value out of social than I realized, even though I’m not a regular poster on any of the channels by any means. Facebook was also invaluable when our town was fighting a large shipping center with massive truck traffic that was trying to move in–the community organizing was truly something to behold. Twitter is less and less important to me these days. Not enough content of interest (I used to get a lot of ideas and book suggestions following professionals in my field but never seem to see their content anymore). Too much anger and misinformation there these days for my taste. I may be off on this, but I feel like the people who spend the most time on Facebook and Twitter are also those who should maybe pursue more education, watch true news, and/or broaden their life experience and social circles a bit more. Lot of garbage ideas and mean-spiritedness circulated there with no reality check if you spend too much time.
I always think people who post things on LinkedIn are weird. Kind of like thought bois.
I’m not super-active on LinkedIn but I do repost other people’s posts once a month or so, and will occasionally write a post of my own, although not in that “broetry” style you see so much. I am in a niche field and so when I post or repost, it’s something related to my field; not just about random current events, or whatever. I’ve gotten contract work and inquiries from potential clients from posting, so for me, being “weird” according to you has also been pretty lucrative. So I’ll keep doing it.
I use FB exclusively for my personal life and I am very careful on who is allowed to see my posts and regarding my privacy settings. I generally do not friend people I know professionally, although a handful of past and present co-workers made that list (mostly because they were personal friends before I worked with them or we became friends while working together and I wanted to keep in touch once I left). I find it unvaluable for some of the (private) neighborhood groups I am in. I do not follow anyone political, and I promptly mute any family member who posted things I find offensive. It is also the main way I keep up with my extended, distant family.
Twitter is for following a handful of (funny) law and dog accounts as well as a handful of journalists. I also follow my local emergency services accounts and it is most useful for that (I live in a part of California prone to wildfires and the Cal Fire account is the best way to get local information.) Almost never post.
Instagram is purely for fun. I do not follow many people and have never posted. I do not do TikTok because I do not need another time suck and my company prohibits it on company devices.
LinkedIn is solely professional, and I agree that it is no longer considered a referral. I rarely post, although I did when my company went through its first round of layoffs to try to help my co-workers. When I was myself laid off, it was incredibly useful in letting my network know I was looking for a new position (and in fact I got two offers out of that).