Ten Biggest Facebook faux pas
Facebook. Most of us can’t live without it, even while we dismiss it as a serious time-suck. Make sure you’re using Facebook to its full potential and avoid the 10 biggest Facebook faux pas.
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Accepting everyone as your Facebook friend
It’s far better to be a discerning user and only accept friend requests from real friends than to start deleting people from a too-long list of strangers and people you don’t like.
Poking
If you’re thinking of someone, send them a message. Poking can be a little creepy, and because many don’t use this feature, it can be easily misinterpreted.
Don’t “like” everything just because you can. Show a little selectivity.
Having zero privacy settings enabled
Be careful about how much identifying information you make available online. Even the most careful users should explore the privacy settings to ensure their photos and status updates are only accessible to the people they want reading them.
Flooding your network with status updates
Yes, your friends want to know about the important things going on in your life. They don’t want to see you post a play-by-play of your day.
Don’t repost and share every single image of a cat and/or baby with a witty caption. Your friends will start hiding your feed.
Venting and oversharing
Your Facebook wall is not your journal or your best friend. If you need a sounding board after an emotional day, call your mom. Oversharing, venting, or posting cryptic and open-ended statuses will only alienate your friends.
If you post something every time someone lets you down, your friends may distance themselves for fear of experiencing your unfair, very public wrath.
Neglecting to engage others
Facebook is a social network, not a narcissism network. Don’t just expect friends to like your statuses and offer compliments on pics of your new haircut.
Engage with your friends. Comment on their statuses. Send them quick messages of encouragement.
Constantly changing your relationship status
If you’re the king or queen of super-short relationships, maybe it’s best that you keep your relationship status invisible.
Constant changes from “single” to “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated” can turn your wall into an annoying — or alarming, or, sadly, amusing — soap opera for your friends who stalk your profile.
Posting embarrassing photos of others
This is a huge faux pas. If you Photoshopped your own profile pic, surely you can offer the courtesy of at least uploading only flattering photos of your friends and family.
If someone ever asks you to take down a photo or untag them, do so immediately. Photo drama is never worth it.
Don’t upload incriminating photos of yourself, either. If you don’t want your boss, co-workers, parents and/or hypothetical future spouse seeing the photos, don’t put them on Facebook.
Complaining about employers, co-workers, family or professors
Even with security measures in place, complaining about others is rarely worth the risk, especially when those individuals’ opinions of you are important personally or professionally.
If you need to gripe about an unreasonable boss, call a friend and vent without the digital trail.
• Facebook Faux Pas #10: Breaking up with someone over Facebook.