Social Networking Boundaries

Social networking has a way of really sucking you in and causing you to share – sometimes too much and often with complete strangers.

The following tweet by Penelope Trunk has been discussed to death already, so I won’t get into the details of why she did it (she did provide an explanation) or of what exactly people thought about what they perceived as her over-sharing.

Penelopes Trunk Tweet

I will however say this: in a way, blogging and tweeting for my clients are easy. These are corporate accounts and business-related materials which make it very easy to focus. When I provide social media services to clients, I know exactly what’s expected of me and I act accordingly.

Every company wants to have a blog and a Twitter account with a strong, personal voice – no one wants “dry” or “formal” – but no client will ever expect me to share personal stuff on their accounts.

When it comes to my own blog and Twitter accounts, things are different. There’s this expectation from bloggers to do deep sharing on their blogs – it’s after all fascinating to read about someone else’s drama – but of course, when you do share, there’s the backlash, especially against “mommy bloggers” who are perceived as “using” their kids to get online exposure and following.

My solution is far from perfect, because I choose to share very little, which makes my personal spaces on the Internet a little reserved, maybe even dry. But it works for me. It’s important to remember though that what feels like oversharing to one person may feel perfectly OK to another. We need to respect each other’s choices when it comes to how much we are willing to share online.