Can we be friends?

Coming from the financial industry, something that we were always told was to keep personal and business interactions completely separate. That meant don’t friend your co-workers on Facebook, don’t friend your vendors on Facebook, and definitely do not friend the investors you were working for on Facebook. I understood the reasons – there needs to be separation between the two, right? Of course, when you’re attending the conventions though, what do you end up talking about?  Your personal life – your children, the sports you play, and any other activities you engage in, so while I understood the advice, I always felt there was a bit of a contradiction.
When I started at VPS.NET in June of last year, I carried over much of this philosophy – I made some comprises; the basic premise was I would friend the person, as long I had met them in person before. Even with that compromise, I was still extremely closed off compared to a lot of people. As I built relationships with clients from VPS.NET, I realized that maybe my closed off strategy really wasn’t the best move; there’s a vast difference between the tech. industry and the financial industry. The age gap is no longer there – at the technology conventions we attend, like DrupalCon, the average age is no older 25.  All of our clients – they’re actually like us. So, the other day when the friend request from a client came in, I took a step towards a change and accepted the request.
There were a lot of reasons for the change. Some business, and some person. One of the primary lines of thought was that if I’m doing something and then putting it on Facebook that I’d embarrassed about if a client saw it, it’s probably something I shouldn’t be doing in the first place. Secondly, in the line of business we’re in, there’s not a whole lot of human interaction with our customers. There’s unfortunately no way to change that completely, but Facebook can help “humanize” things, and show that despite rumors, I’m not a virtualized robot given the power of life by VPS.NET. It’ll not only show my interests outside of VPS.NET but also help me learn yours, and then create the opportunity to share tips, and other ideas. Just the other day thanks to Facebook, I found out that Ditlev is a master of eating with chop sticks, something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do. At the next convention, I’m going to force him to share his skills — help me become a bit more cultured.
Before  you go the same route I did though, there’s certainly some things to consider:
1.) Take a look at your profile. Would your clients be comfortable using your services after seeing everything on it? This includes your posts, friends posts and any pictures you might have. Would you do business with yourself after seeing everything that is up there?
2.) Take advantage of the privacy settings – maybe you want to be friends with clients, but block off pictures and videos. That be easily done by setting up a group and restricting that groups access.
3.) If you still want to live the party boy life style, yet still connect with clients, maybe LinkedIn.com is a suitable compromise.
Ultimately, the decision is up to you – there’s no set in stone rule about friending clients. Your decision though can impact your business – use it right, and you might reap the  benefits. Use it wrong and an embarrassing picture pops up on a client’s news feed, you might want to re-consider the use of social networking.