I agree with you. I don't post a lot of thing to Facebook because the friend count has far exceeded my circle of friends (which isn't THAT small). I just don't want some business associates or even family members seeing what I am doing - and it's nothing illegal.
I just don't talk to my friends the same way I talk to extended family and business associates.
I think I may go on a mass Facebook cleansing this week.
Turner
· 8 months ago
Interesting to see this post, as I just asked a Twitter-only friend to connect on Facebook this morning (a first for me). Until now, my FB friends are only people who I've met IRL. But in the "new world order" of the social web, I think it's completely acceptable to have friends who you've only met online. I can connect with 5 "friends" who I haven't seen since high school in the 90's, or 1 with whom I've had strong Twitter-based conversation... I think I'd go with the 1.
Nonetheless, I think my bar is set pretty high for those with whom I'd connect on FB.
-MJT
Michael Bauser
· 8 months ago
"[I]f you’re a social media consultant or otherwise deeply involved with social networking & media sites, you might find it a necessity to amass as many friends as you can on sites...."
Also, if you're a "social media consultant," you probably have no real friends. It's become the preferred imaginary job for internet-obsessed losers with no technical OR social skills.
Otherwise... hear, hear! I limit my Facebook and Twitter to people I've met in the real world, and want to meet again. The people who claim they "get value" from gigantic networks of near-strangers updating them about their personal lives (and/or bombarding them with marketing messages) really need to get a grip. 5000 imaginary friends are not going to make you likable or rich.
Glenn D. Hudson
· 8 months ago
did you ever consider that not everyone is as tech savvy as you? that some may actually need a consultant to conduct business online, genius?
MojoYugen
· 8 months ago
For Facebook I have a pretty simple rule. If I trust them with my home phone and address then I'll add them. Obviously this cuts down drastically on the number of friends I have. Well, that and my abrasive personality and questionably hygiene habits.
Cindy Scott Day
· 8 months ago
I totally agree. I dislike it when Facebook tries to imitate Twitter. I use each, but for entirely different reasons. Like you, I like Facebook for people I actually know. I make a few exceptions (closer Twitter acquaintances, professional friends, people I know more casually, etc.) That's where Facebook's custom friend books are useful.
As a writer, there are many reasons why I desire a large follow/follower circle. I follow because I very much enjoy the global stream of consciousness that a large Twitter stream provides. Additionally, following back enables me to find new friends. I rely heavily on TweetDeck, though, and I'm sure I might think differently about following large if I couldn't create a smaller circle of follows there.
jakrose
· 8 months ago
I think I am probably on the highend of the number of friends I have on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. To me it comes down to the ability to sort through the mess. I find value in a large audience. It is amazing for gathering information, expertise, and sharing projects you think deserve attention. At the same time I completely agree that it is nice to be able to give care to your inner circle of friends and cohorts, especially on Facebook.
The new Facebook tools are going a long way to making both possible. On Twitter there are many sorting tools (tweetdeck, tweetgrid, etc) and having a separate "personal" account works for me well. On LinkedIn I use socialminder.com to keep up with those I care about most. Without these tools, I would be lost and probably never would have tried amassing the large audiences that I have.
It is all about where you find the most value. But keeping your close friends and contacts within reach, a more intimate setting, is very important online. Thanks for the reminder.
Donna
· 8 months ago
Great post. Facebook is a great tool to reconnect with family and friends. Even with this open digital world today, you need to have some sort of privacy and only share with people what you want to share and limiting your friends is one way to control this.
Bill Romanos
· 8 months ago
On Twitter, I will follow anyone if they do not spam me. On Facebook, I am only friends with people I know offline or people I have interacted or engaged with online in a substantive manner. So I segregate Facebook vs. Twitter. On other sites besides Facebook, I do the same thing I do with Twitter.
Chris
· 8 months ago
On LinkedIn, I have about 2000 contacts. Completely Useless. Basically destroys the value of networking. In fact, I don't get any value from LinkedIn because of that, not to mention the pile of spam that had infected the site.
Now Facebook is very different. My network on Facebook has tremendous value because people who are connected in there are friends and contacts who I have met and know in person. When you have actual friends or contacts, you will respect them in how you network. Meaning you will not be spamming them.
Personally I think that random connections, will be one of the factors for LinkedIn's downfall. I think we can definitely learn a lesson from that.
Giancarlo
· 8 months ago
Same here. I like having a small number of people in Facebook much easier to visit it and read up on. I am really interested at what people have done and sometimes I post stupid messages or videos but the people I know understands me. Twitter, who hasn't followed (insert rock band's name here)? I like Twitter it is like a magazine tabloid full of true or false information just like what the internet is all about.
Stephanie DeLuca
· 8 months ago
I agree with you Stan. I wouldn’t find it useful to have thousands of friends on Facebook. If your friends with people you don’t even know, you won’t care about their status updates. I also think business should be separate from pleasure. We talk differently to our friends than we do our bosses and clients.
Hunter
· 8 months ago
Hi Stan,
Great post and I couldn't agree more with you, and many of the commenters, about keeping your social identities separate (and using Facebook for the inner circle).
For me, FB is only for family & real friends, LinkedIn expands a bit wider and is used for business, and Twitter is business-based but open season. That's how I plan to keep it until/unless the services change.
chris o.
· 8 months ago
This is a great topic and one which comes up quite often. I think when people first engage social media, they get a kick out of amassing a large number of friends. They soon realize, that no matter what filters they're using they can't reap the benefits of both a large and an intimate network; they'll eventually start to envy a smaller more intimate network.
(less = more) and there's really no way around it. Having a network of 20 close colleagues and 480 acquaintances will inevitably depreciate the value of that network.
Intimacy has been our philosophy at Referral Key from the start. While I like and use LinkedIn, Facebook and many other new media tools; too many will reference their professional network of 200+ contacts as evidence of effective networking.
Through a few case studies and personal experiences, we've determined that people ultimately generate new business opportunities from people they already know in the real world and whose quality of work they are familiar with.
All too often people forget to ask the fundamental question, "What is my goal in networking?"
Making online friends, disseminating your resume, and generating new business opportunities are three very different goals that require a different approaches.
The emergence of online social technology is great but the basic principles of relationship building will never be replaced.
This is why it is much more difficult to create a network of just a few dozen professionals who actively advocate for you, than it is to befriend your entire Alma Mater on Facebook.
As I see it, facebook doesn't try to imitate twitter, they made a better version of it. Like, Twitter, for real people.
Personally except for one or two exceptions I know all the people on my friends list personally. Even then I could further divide between family, friends and closer friends. As an example, take facebook's "comment" feature which works on everything on your newsfeed, which is much more prominent since then. Very nice, much nicer then twitters @replies, where that even already eats into your character limit. Which brings me to the next point, no stupid 140 character limit ... i mean come on, it's even shorter then a cellphone text. Also, the facebook sharing feature/"twitter imitation" is much more versatile then twitter, allowing inline thumbnails for shared links and such, where on twitter, you'd need all kinds of third party stuff to get something similiar. Facebook wins, twitter loses, at least for the majority of ppl ...
deepikaur
· 8 months ago
I determine the number of friends I have by whether or not I consider my use of the site as "personal." Sites like Facebook, where I post pictures, my phone number, address, and other things, I keep limited to people I actually know and communicate with, despite knowing that I can limit who sees what.
On the other hand, I don't consider sites like Twitter and Last.FM to be "personal," because I use them as a medium to connect with more people, thus am willing to friend or follow anyone, as long as I see that it would be beneficial.
MattWilsontv
· 8 months ago
Facebook NewsFeed is no fun if you don't know the people who've updated their pictures to here or there...
Twitter streams so quickly, who cares! You can sort with Search and groups anyway!
AdamG511
· 8 months ago
I have to agree. I actually know the people on my facebook
Adam Pieniazek
· 8 months ago
Yup, the quality of online social network relationships is much more important than the quantity, just like the "real world"!
Annelie Näs
· 8 months ago
I totally agree that Facebook the place that I want to keep to my close friends. I actually recently wrote a blog post about it myself. However, two things are different to me, one is that since I have lived in a few cities I use Facebook as a way to stay connect to all my friends, which mean that my friends list is up to a few hundred. Also When I meet new business contacts and they add me on Facebook I don't want to "burn bridges" by not accepting them, so I use Facebook custumazation tools for that.
roger bourland
· 8 months ago
Stan,
This is exactly the question I've raised several times lately on my blog and my facebook page.
Thanks for it!
Roger
Kimi Arima
· 8 months ago
My opinion echoes those of the previous comments. My FB friends are people who I actually now. Now, I have 300+ friends on FB, and not all of them are what I consider close friends. However, that doesn't mean I have to ditch the rest of the bunch: I just use the friend groups so that I can handle the news feed. In other words, I typically check the feed containing my closest friends daily, whereas the feed containing not-so-close friends gets a look about once a week. The reason I don't want to expunge my friend list is that there could, in the future, come a moment when having that large list comes in handy - like needing help on a specific task, I can leverage the full list of 300+ friends, instead of just my closest friends.
The apply the same logic for Twitter. I'm just starting to get a handle on things, and while I am not one of those über-tweeps who send out 50+ updates a day, I do think that a large following could come in handy at some point.
Good post. I think the sweet spot for Facebook is 150 (ie. the Dunbar number/Monkeysphere theory). My facebook posts tend to be more personal - so I don't even have current workmates added. I do a cleansing every few months - my facebook friends need to be people I still consider friends IRL.
As for LinkedIn, I don't mind having as many contacts. I see it more of a business networking tool, so the more the merrier.
In general I don't see the point to add every single person you have met (or haven't met) to every social network you are part of. Just like we have different "levels of friends" for different occasions, it makes sense that our various social networks have different people added.
bradleyf81
· 8 months ago
So many people use these online social sites as an extension of the high school popularity contest mentality. It's ridiculous. I restrict my "friends" on social sites to people that I'm actually friends with, and almost without exception to people I've actually met in person before. Also, just because I've met someone in person doesn't mean that I want them to be my "friend" on a social network either.
What's the point of having a social network of thousands if you're not doing it for business reasons? Do you really keep up with what those multitudes of people are doing? Do you really care what they're doing? Do you somehow feel better about yourself by looking at the number of "friends" you have that accepted your friend request but will never actually take the time to get to know you?
One thing that really bothers me is random invites from people I've never met or even talked to. I get this the most from BlogCatalog, and somewhat from Twitter. If you want to send me a friend request, at least have a conversation with me first so I have a reason to consider it.
I'll stop ranting now!
Annalise
· 8 months ago
Anyone can be your Facebook friend. The problem one person really can't have close freindships with hundreds or more people. The really great thing about having a lot of connections on social networks is that it gives you the capabilities to send mass communication to people along with marketing to a varied demographic. -Annalise www.ezanga.com
Ashok Nare
· 8 months ago
I totally agree.
I use facebook to manage and keep up with my personal contacts -- primarily family and friends. I do not have any coworker on my facebook profile yet because even though I am friends with a lot of my coworkers, they have not crossed the threshold of being able to participate in personal life.
I use LinkedIn exclusively for professional networking (granted that is it's primary use) and I generally don't accept connections unless I know the person in some form (unless I am networking with recruiters and marketing professionals).
I think I am the most liberal with Twitter -- I let people follow me as long as the profile does not arise any suspicions for me and I only follow them back if their profiles are connected to my interests one way or another.
So, no -- anyone cannot be my facebook friend !
- Ashok
Bruce Tretter
· 8 months ago
Interesting thoughts. Haven't spent nearly as much time on FB as Twitter. Like the idea of keeping FB more personal. My goal w. Twitter is to get the word out about what I have to offer to help others - picture book basics for new/non-cooks, especially those 20-30 years old. Was thinking about expanding that to FB. Now, maybe not. Thanks - Bruce
Blix
· 8 months ago
Agree, on every level- though being the boss, I still find myself torn when it comes to FB friending employees. Do I want my employees to see my status update that I'm playing Legos with my kids at 8am while they're supposed to be working? Not really.
Facebook for me is very personal. Company Twitter & Blog are where I live it up with the clients. Facebook is for when I go home.
Darren Alff
· 8 months ago
I get friend requests a lot of times for people who find me through my business. I have a business page set up, but how do I tell these people who are contacting me on my personal Facebook account that I would prefer that they become a fan of my business on my business' Facebook Page? Any suggestions there?
Jane Tattersall
· 8 months ago
I have a weird system where its mostly reactive to people who find me. I don't really send friend requests unless I need to chat with someone. This is based on the fact I am usually early to these networks and not interested in sending out multiple "join here" emails. I tend to approve people I "don't hate", ie no to people I've never met or people I'm not fond of. Yes to people who I like/love or enjoy the company of, however inconsistent our relationship is.
I agree its tough to manage the newsfeeds etc with too many friends (I'm at 900 which is very high to me), but I use the products on the facebook platform that are useful to me - chatting, sharing content, etc. Newsfeeds are not a primary source of info - more like a constant stream of silliness I dip in and out of as the mood seizes me. I don't feel that's a place to share anything that you don't care whether or not I see.
Stacey Small
· 8 months ago
While at first, it was not my intention to have Facebook friends who I didn't know personally, I soon found that I can learn a great deal from things total strangers post. I'm grateful to many people on Facebook who post interesting links that I might not have come across otherwise (expanding horizons). I use Facebook to keep up on the little things in my friends' lives but I also lean on it heavily as a means to convey information to my friends and contacts that I think is important about the causes (and Causes) I support. I figure that if anyone doesn't like all the posts, they can tone down what they see from me or drop me entirely if it's that much of a problem. So far I haven't lost anyone. I don't know what my personal cutoff will be, but I'm sure I'll know when I hit it.
As far as current co-workers, with a few exceptions, I only friend work people who I no longer work with - people I want to stay in touch with after one of us has moved on. This just keeps some space between my personal time and my work time. So far I've only had one co-worker directly ask me why I didn't respond to her friend request, and I just told her, "Well, when you quit or I quit, we can use it to stay in touch!" and she accepted that.
On the other hand, I follow on Twitter fairly indiscriminately. Some people are local and I enjoy getting the text updates about what's going on in town. Others I check out when I'm online and they've led me to some great new sources of information.
LinkedIn I keep fairly limited as I see it as a truly professional networking tool. Almost all of my contacts are people I've personally done business with but I have a few connections with whom I share common background, or we may have a mutual benefit from sharing our network.
Kris
· 8 months ago
i agree i only have 4 friends on facebook! beat that! hehe!
Aron Watson
· 8 months ago
No, not anyone can be your friend on Facebook.
One of the main reasons you should keep your friend's list on Facebook to a minimum is it's against there TOS to solicit new friends you don't *really* know.
If you send out a lot of friend's requests, and a certain amount get's denied, your account can be automatically disabled. If you message,poke,send video links to large amounts of friends, your account can be disabled. If you send out birthday invites to 100 friends and family, and use the *same* message, you can be red-flagged as a spammer, and your account automatically disabled.
And to get your account re-enabled, the wait can be anything from 2 days to 2 months.
So even though Facebook is a social networking site, in some cases, It's not a good idea to be to social.
Edouard
· 8 months ago
I don't add people I don't know on Facebook. Like you, I consider it is done for friends or colleagues.
I do the same on Twitter...
Susan
· 8 months ago
Yeah, Facebooks for real people friends and distant relatives (definitely under 100). Twitter for exploring interesting new people and news outlets -- but I like the refreshing trickle, not the flattening firehose.
virtuallyready
· 8 months ago
My business is about web presence, but when I receive a new friend request, I always review their information first. If they don't appear to be legit and don't include a friendly intro message, most likely they simply won't get added.
On Facebook, you can now create lists and then add your new friends to certain lists (ie, you can create lists such as personal friends, school mates, family, business associates). When a friend request is received, you are offered a pull-down menu where you can select the appropriate list. You can add or edit anytime you wish by going to the "friends" link at the top of your home page
Furthermore, you can maintain a certain level of privacy associated with those lists in your account privacy settings.
Lastly, when it comes to being inundated with TMI on your homepage news feed, you can now select a specific view from each of those lists you created.
maxiboy
· 8 months ago
Hi, nice to meet you.
chantelle
· 8 months ago
hiya
katie
· 8 months ago
hiya were u from an how old r u
ANGELA MOSLEY
· 8 months ago
HI, YOU KNOW, THIS ARTICLE CAUGHT MY EYE BECAUSE I HAD RECENTLY BEEN CONTACTED BY PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK WANTING "TO BE MY FRIEND" THAT I DID NOT KNOW AT ALL....FACEBOOK IS A WONDERFUL TOOL TO USE TO CATCH UP WITH OLD HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS AND TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OUT OF STATE. I ALSO CAUTION THAT IT CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS IF YOUR PROFILE IS NOT PROTECTED AND YOU "MAKE FRIENDS" WITH PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW. PLEASE BE AWARE...WHILE I HAVE RECONNECTED WITH SOME OLD FRIENDS, PLEASE USE DISCRETION IN THE FRIENDS YOU MAKE...
John Foster
· 8 months ago
I think FB is a great tool and I've been using friend groups since before the latest redesign. Because my weekend job/hobby is DJing and promoting concerts I'm going to have a ton of people who are casual acquaintances from the club who simply want to know when/where our next event will be held. Breaking them into a separate group and only inviting that group to an event is great. MySpace isn't that versatile for promoting events. I also have school-alumni and work-alumni to keep up with former classmates and coworkers. Finally I have my Top 20 IRL friends and the unknown bucket. The latter has almost no access to my profile or other information. I rarely look at the full stream of updates and concentrate on my Top 20 IRL friends. Plaxo tried to be the only address book you need, but Facebook is better suited to that because of the number of people on the service. LinkedIn has only close business associates, people I would hire/contract with, or well known movers & shakers at your local professional association meetings who are out spoken enough to call upon if you need an opinion on a topic.
froggertv
· 8 months ago
Yes anyone can be your friend on facebook this i feel personally, I am new to facebook and have 1000 friends there, i regularly gets friend request from friend of my friend making my circle grow bigger and bigger.
Steven
· 8 months ago
My FaceBook friends are those I know in real life (including family) or have had an extensive communica over the years. As a teacher I like to keep some of my life private so my profile setting is set to private and I only accept family, real life friends, friends known for many years on other services and a couple of workmates that I like keeping in contact with.
I'm not the type to add willynilly each and every person I come across within the social network; the term friend then starts to become meaningly as no relationship had previously formed or is sustained.
Keith Stewart
· 8 months ago
Just as many friends as you need and are comfortable with. Thats the ideal number, but 'overload' must surely exist.
brock
· 7 months ago
i love metallica
brock
· 7 months ago
i love girls how about you?
brock
· 7 months ago
this website sucks.because if you comment anything they wont answer it.
All Comments
I just don't talk to my friends the same way I talk to extended family and business associates.
I think I may go on a mass Facebook cleansing this week.
Nonetheless, I think my bar is set pretty high for those with whom I'd connect on FB.
-MJT
Also, if you're a "social media consultant," you probably have no real friends. It's become the preferred imaginary job for internet-obsessed losers with no technical OR social skills.
Otherwise... hear, hear! I limit my Facebook and Twitter to people I've met in the real world, and want to meet again. The people who claim they "get value" from gigantic networks of near-strangers updating them about their personal lives (and/or bombarding them with marketing messages) really need to get a grip. 5000 imaginary friends are not going to make you likable or rich.
As a writer, there are many reasons why I desire a large follow/follower circle. I follow because I very much enjoy the global stream of consciousness that a large Twitter stream provides. Additionally, following back enables me to find new friends. I rely heavily on TweetDeck, though, and I'm sure I might think differently about following large if I couldn't create a smaller circle of follows there.
The new Facebook tools are going a long way to making both possible. On Twitter there are many sorting tools (tweetdeck, tweetgrid, etc) and having a separate "personal" account works for me well. On LinkedIn I use socialminder.com to keep up with those I care about most. Without these tools, I would be lost and probably never would have tried amassing the large audiences that I have.
It is all about where you find the most value. But keeping your close friends and contacts within reach, a more intimate setting, is very important online. Thanks for the reminder.
Now Facebook is very different. My network on Facebook has tremendous value because people who are connected in there are friends and contacts who I have met and know in person. When you have actual friends or contacts, you will respect them in how you network. Meaning you will not be spamming them.
Personally I think that random connections, will be one of the factors for LinkedIn's downfall. I think we can definitely learn a lesson from that.
Great post and I couldn't agree more with you, and many of the commenters, about keeping your social identities separate (and using Facebook for the inner circle).
For me, FB is only for family & real friends, LinkedIn expands a bit wider and is used for business, and Twitter is business-based but open season. That's how I plan to keep it until/unless the services change.
(less = more) and there's really no way around it. Having a network of 20 close colleagues and 480 acquaintances will inevitably depreciate the value of that network.
Intimacy has been our philosophy at Referral Key from the start. While I like and use LinkedIn, Facebook and many other new media tools; too many will reference their professional network of 200+ contacts as evidence of effective networking.
Through a few case studies and personal experiences, we've determined that people ultimately generate new business opportunities from people they already know in the real world and whose quality of work they are familiar with.
All too often people forget to ask the fundamental question, "What is my goal in networking?"
Making online friends, disseminating your resume, and generating new business opportunities are three very different goals that require a different approaches.
The emergence of online social technology is great but the basic principles of relationship building will never be replaced.
This is why it is much more difficult to create a network of just a few dozen professionals who actively advocate for you, than it is to befriend your entire Alma Mater on Facebook.
best,
Chris .O
Referral Key Blogger
"Your Trusted Referral Network"
http://www.referralkey.com/small-business-blog/
Like, Twitter, for real people.
Personally except for one or two exceptions I know all the people on my friends list personally. Even then I could further divide between family, friends and closer friends.
As an example, take facebook's "comment" feature which works on everything on your newsfeed, which is much more prominent since then. Very nice, much nicer then twitters @replies, where that even already eats into your character limit. Which brings me to the next point, no stupid 140 character limit ... i mean come on, it's even shorter then a cellphone text. Also, the facebook sharing feature/"twitter imitation" is much more versatile then twitter, allowing inline thumbnails for shared links and such, where on twitter, you'd need all kinds of third party stuff to get something similiar.
Facebook wins, twitter loses, at least for the majority of ppl ...
On the other hand, I don't consider sites like Twitter and Last.FM to be "personal," because I use them as a medium to connect with more people, thus am willing to friend or follow anyone, as long as I see that it would be beneficial.
Twitter streams so quickly, who cares! You can sort with Search and groups anyway!
This is exactly the question I've raised several times lately on my blog and my facebook page.
Thanks for it!
Roger
The apply the same logic for Twitter. I'm just starting to get a handle on things, and while I am not one of those über-tweeps who send out 50+ updates a day, I do think that a large following could come in handy at some point.
Good post, btw.
K.
As for LinkedIn, I don't mind having as many contacts. I see it more of a business networking tool, so the more the merrier.
In general I don't see the point to add every single person you have met (or haven't met) to every social network you are part of. Just like we have different "levels of friends" for different occasions, it makes sense that our various social networks have different people added.
What's the point of having a social network of thousands if you're not doing it for business reasons? Do you really keep up with what those multitudes of people are doing? Do you really care what they're doing? Do you somehow feel better about yourself by looking at the number of "friends" you have that accepted your friend request but will never actually take the time to get to know you?
One thing that really bothers me is random invites from people I've never met or even talked to. I get this the most from BlogCatalog, and somewhat from Twitter. If you want to send me a friend request, at least have a conversation with me first so I have a reason to consider it.
I'll stop ranting now!
I use facebook to manage and keep up with my personal contacts -- primarily family and friends. I do not have any coworker on my facebook profile yet because even though I am friends with a lot of my coworkers, they have not crossed the threshold of being able to participate in personal life.
I use LinkedIn exclusively for professional networking (granted that is it's primary use) and I generally don't accept connections unless I know the person in some form (unless I am networking with recruiters and marketing professionals).
I think I am the most liberal with Twitter -- I let people follow me as long as the profile does not arise any suspicions for me and I only follow them back if their profiles are connected to my interests one way or another.
So, no -- anyone cannot be my facebook friend !
- Ashok
Facebook for me is very personal. Company Twitter & Blog are where I live it up with the clients. Facebook is for when I go home.
I agree its tough to manage the newsfeeds etc with too many friends (I'm at 900 which is very high to me), but I use the products on the facebook platform that are useful to me - chatting, sharing content, etc. Newsfeeds are not a primary source of info - more like a constant stream of silliness I dip in and out of as the mood seizes me. I don't feel that's a place to share anything that you don't care whether or not I see.
As far as current co-workers, with a few exceptions, I only friend work people who I no longer work with - people I want to stay in touch with after one of us has moved on. This just keeps some space between my personal time and my work time. So far I've only had one co-worker directly ask me why I didn't respond to her friend request, and I just told her, "Well, when you quit or I quit, we can use it to stay in touch!" and she accepted that.
On the other hand, I follow on Twitter fairly indiscriminately. Some people are local and I enjoy getting the text updates about what's going on in town. Others I check out when I'm online and they've led me to some great new sources of information.
LinkedIn I keep fairly limited as I see it as a truly professional networking tool. Almost all of my contacts are people I've personally done business with but I have a few connections with whom I share common background, or we may have a mutual benefit from sharing our network.
One of the main reasons you should keep your friend's list on Facebook to a minimum is it's
against there TOS to solicit new friends you don't *really* know.
If you send out a lot of friend's requests, and a certain amount get's denied, your account can be automatically disabled.
If you message,poke,send video links to large amounts of friends, your account can be disabled.
If you send out birthday invites to 100 friends and family, and use the *same* message, you can
be red-flagged as a spammer, and your account automatically disabled.
And to get your account re-enabled, the wait can be anything from 2 days to 2 months.
So even though Facebook is a social networking site, in some cases, It's not a good idea to
be to social.
I do the same on Twitter...
On Facebook, you can now create lists and then add your new friends to certain lists (ie, you can create lists such as personal friends, school mates, family, business associates). When a friend request is received, you are offered a pull-down menu where you can select the appropriate list. You can add or edit anytime you wish by going to the "friends" link at the top of your home page
Furthermore, you can maintain a certain level of privacy associated with those lists in your account privacy settings.
Lastly, when it comes to being inundated with TMI on your homepage news feed, you can now select a specific view from each of those lists you created.
I'm not the type to add willynilly each and every person I come across within the social network; the term friend then starts to become meaningly as no relationship had previously formed or is sustained.