I signed up for Facebook several years after I joined LinkedIn.  In fact, I even joined Twitter six months before becoming a Facebook member.  A year ago you could of said that a Gen X guy on Facebook was not the norm.  But now that there are as many Facebook users aged 25 to 54 as there are those that are aged 18 to 24, I would consider my demographic fairly average these days.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when I uploaded my LinkedIn contacts to Facebook and found an acceptance rate of only 10 to 15% to become my “friend”.  So, you’re OK connecting with me on LinkedIn, but not being my friend on Facebook?  What’s the scoop?

I know what you’re going to say: “I use Facebook for personal uses and LinkedIn for business, so I prefer to connect with only close friends on Facebook.” And I had many people say this to me.

But, as I say to people on LinkedIn, if you are on Facebook and don’t want to connect to new people, why are you on a social networking site to begin with?  Why not just email and phone them?

I understand that Facebook gives you the ability to upload and share photos and videos.  And maybe some of those that you posted are not for public consumption.  Why would you put these things on Facebook to begin with?  There are photo-sharing and video-sharing sites out there that give you the same ability to do this with complete privacy.

You see, from a Windmill Networking perspective, all of these social networking sites are all different flavors of the same social media.  Yes, each site has different functionality and a different networking environment, but I don’t have any different policy for Facebook than I would for LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other site.

I simply don’t put any personal information on the Internet that is not for public consumption.  Period.

You can see how from my perspective, there is a case for Windmill Networking on every social networking site.  Facebook is particularly appealing because it has 200 million members.  That’s five times the 40 million that LinkedIn has!  Can you imagine all of the wonderful people out there that you can potentially connect with and mutually add value to?  And the ability to post valuable photos and videos, not of the personal nature but in helping you brand yourself or educate others, is tremendous.

And you still only connect with people you know on Facebook?

Let me end with a message to those that are still afraid to venture out onto Facebook.  You don’t have to follow my connections policy if you don’t want to.  But you should remember my point of just not putting anything up there that you wouldn’t want the public to see.  Avoid the temptation to put embarrassing things online.  And remember there are many privacy settings on Facebook that you can utilize to further protect yourself.

Don’t be afraid of joining or Windmill Networking on any social networking site, including Facebook.  Just remember your objective and make sure that everything you do is helping market your brand.  Simple!