Who Even Are You? Facebook Friend Request Etiquette
Who are you people?
Over the past couple months, I’ve been getting friend requests on my Facebook profile left and right from total strangers. You may not think you’re a total stranger if you follow me on Twitter or if we have 28 mutual friends, but I have no idea who you are. If we’ve never spoken or if there is no evidence that I know you, you’re a stranger, plain and simple.
And here’s the thing: I might want to be your friend. In fact, I probably do want to be your friend. But when you request my friendship without saying how you know me, anything about a mutual contact, why you think we should connect, etc., you just look like a sketchball. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s true.
Look, it takes one minute to write a little message that attaches with a friend request. If you want to be my Facebook friend (or ANYONE’s Facebook friend–this is etiquette that should be universal) spend 60 seconds saying why. However, there’s a right and a wrong way to approach this.
Examples of appropriate messages:
- Hi Amanda, I follow you on Twitter and wanted to connect on Facebook, too.
- Hey Amanda, we met at a Tweetup in Boston. It was great meeting you in person–Facebook friendship is the next logical step, right?
- Hi, I’m Friendston McFriendinator. Small world–I work with Friendiana Friendelton and she told me you’ve been buds since you were kids. She said you’re a good person to know.
- Hi Amanda, I subscribe to Social Honeycomb and think your blog is rad. Wanna be friends?
Examples of inappropriate messages:
- hi your hot LOL
- I tried poking you but you didn’t poke me back. Can we be friends now????!?!?!!
- I’m visiting Boston next month and you looked like someone who knows how to have fun, if you know what I mean…
- Hi, you said on your blog I had to do this or you wouldn’t accept my friend request. So, yeah.
You may think I’m being facetious but people really send idiotic, vapid stuff like that^.
Or worse, nothing at all.
And I’ll be transparent: I’m guilty of not saying anything with friend requests to people I don’t personally know sometimes, too. Usually it’s with someone who’s a “twelebrity” or something totally absurd and stupid to say like that, but I’m going to make sure I take my own advice from now on in all friending situations. Please, please take my advice, too.
If you’re the type of guy person who sends blank friend requests to girls people you don’t really know, take a minute and ask, “Do I want her to think I’m a sketchball?” Hopefully the answer is “NO” and you’ll send a qualifying message with that “Add to friends” clickety click.
19 Responses to “Who Even Are You? Facebook Friend Request Etiquette”
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What is a Facebook “poke” anyway? I never did quite get that.
Yea, I agree, this is a good post, “inappropriate” messages are just like “facebook spam”
Good example of a qualifying message: “it ain’t a bowl of cherries…”
Great points Amanda. Very useful. I too feel uneasy about automatically accepting requests. I have a significant connection list on LinkedIn and generally like to keep Facebook as non-business. This hasn’t really worked and a limitation of Facebook (as far as I can see) is that you can’t put someone in the Limited Profile if they’re asking to connect with you.
Anyway thanks for the blog and keep up the great work.
Totally with you there, Amanda - I’ve gotten a few weird requests lately too, and I usually either DENY or write back, hey, do we actually know each other? I feel like all those blank requests are coming from Facebook auto-frienders who want as many friends as possible just to seem popular.
Yeah, I agree entirely. Sketchball-City!
I don’t get random invites often, but when I do, I definitely check mutual friends. Not because I’d like to know who the other person knows, but because I’d like to get an idea how they came to the conclusion that they want to be connected to me on facebook.
Out of the Social Media crew, I sincerely doubt I’d be the first one that people would approach, so I’m not keen on accepting randoms for no particluar reason. Also, if I see I have 20 or 30 friends in common with someone, I’d like to know which 20 those are, hahaha. Without the potential to make a hierarchy of friends and acquaintances, you can’t tell off the bat if someone knows 20 of your actual friends or 20 people that just happened to add you and you happened to accept.
And, of course attrative females are going to get a ton of guys kicking game to them, so… C’est La Vie! hahaha
I’ll check out the mutual friends if there is a display there, but what I usually do is accept the friend request, and go immediately to that person’s profile to check things out. If I don’t like what I see, I’ll remove that friend as quickly as they were added.
I can’t think of facebook pokes without thinking of Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove cutting cards with a hooker who’s trying to quit hookin’ (friend of his) for the chance to “go upstairs for a poke.” When he wins, she accuses him of cheating, and he replies:
“Well I won’t say I did, and I won’t say I didn’t, but I will say any man who wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough!”
I named my truck after that whore. Lorie Darlin’.
Also, hey Gravel, what the hell is Twitter? And what the HELL is a Tweetup? Because if it is what it sounds like, shoot, that’s plum crazy.
Sadly enough, I’m one of those people who tends to whip right through and not leave a personalized message/introduction. I should really work on changing that about myself. However, when I get friend requests like that, I usually accept them, send them a message asking who they are or how they came across me, and if I don’t get a reply back within a reasonable amount of time, like a day, I unfriend them.
I see what you’re saying. It’s the whole ‘consider your audience’ mentality that we should all have when presenting ourselves ‘out there’ on the web or anywhere. Makes sense.
In the end, its the price we all pay for putting up a profile on any of these social media sites.
If you’re a blogger, on Twitter or Facebook, if you even just have a website … chances are you are opening yourself up to a lot of undesirable interactions. Other interactions might have more relevance to what you do, to what you project on the web or in public. Spam, netiquette and rules of the road here on the information superhighway are fairly nebulous … and that sort of vague interpretation of typical social conventions is the basis for why a lot of people are even on the web.
Unfortunately, for every 2 appropriate emails or communications I seem to see about 10 spam-like equivalents. And this is with spam filtering ‘on’. There is no such filter established for Facebook. Although they seem to have removed the ability to ‘poke’ a stranger.
Opportunity is a click away. Annoyance is the same click away. Be careful what you click for.
I went with the “I want to slather you with Miracle Whip” approach and it worked.
Call NBC to see if they can do some special show like the child predator one. My woman gets some of the funniest emails on The Space.
For selfish reasons, I like that there are guys like this out there. It makes it much easier for the normal guys like me to run game!!
I HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING THE SAME THING!!! AHH!! It’s craziness and it’s so unfair that we have to deal with this because we’re girls. Check out the creepy message I got the other day: http://alanataylor.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-annoys-me.html
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Amanda, I am sorry this happend to you. But I enjoyed reading this blog post, so there was a silver lining. haha- “Friendston McFriendinator” - awesome fake name!!!
I am naming my first child friendina friendleton buendia. great post!
I get this too, all the time. It’s one of the things that baffles me with Facebook. A lot of the Facebook cult like to just collect friends.
[…] Who Even Are You? Facebook Friend Request Etiquette at Social Honeycomb Look, it takes one minute to write a little message that attaches with a friend request. If you want to be my Facebook friend (or ANYONE’s Facebook friend–this is etiquette that should be universal) spend 60 seconds saying why. However, there’s a right and a wrong way to approach this (tags: socialnetworking Facebook) […]