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.
32 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! :D
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 :D
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
[...] “Atomize” Your Content: Share in Small Bits – PR Squared Who Even Are You? Facebook Friend Request Etiquette – Social Honeycomb [...]
[...] Amanda’s post was about how people send friends requests with zero context or explanation of who they are or why [...]
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) [...]
I’ve been getting more than a few lately without messages, and came here to see if there’s atleast a way to look at their profile before accepting or rejecting. Then I’d have a better idea of who I’m adding without saying, “Who the hell are you, and why did you pick me out of thousands to be your friend?”
I deny people I know constantly. It’s my right. (and considering that rights are so hard to come by lately, I exert it!) Just because we went to school together some odd years ago does not mean we are friends. If you never attempted to befriend me in real-life, and have come to regret it now that I have achieved celebrity status, you can (at the very least) send me a message outlining your desire to remedy any bad blood or disinterest. You can also send me flowers. But even then, your chances are probably slim. I frankly don’t give a damn about your feelings. One of my least favorite feelings in the world is feeling false. Thus, if I don’t like you, I’m not going to pretend that I do. It will only hurt us both in the long run. You will inevitably send me some application invite or a list of things for me to add on to, at which point I will be forced to either ignore you or explain to you my belief that people who sit around typing about their interests are failing to to be actively participating in any of them, thus they should probably cease to exist all together. Now this isn’t a pleasant feeling, is it? Consider it a favor when I deny you.
Hi, anyone knows how many friend requests can we sent out per day? I received a warning on too many friend request?
I´m 100% with you on that. Please add me as a friend. (YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN)
[...] about Facebook etiquette before, and have since gotten a bit lax with my denial of random would-be friends who don’t [...]
Good points, I’m glad I read this :)
About a week ago, I sent a fanletter to someone who isn’t quite famous, but kind of used to be (long story). In it, I had donated $40.00 for the fundraiser, and her friend that uses facebook said she thought it was sweet.
Stupidly, I had sent her a private message first (which she probably gets tons of and didn’t see it), and then decided to do a friend request, but I was dumb, and didn’t add a message in that request. :( I had been waiting like 2 days to see if she had accepted and I was on that screen where it said “awaiting confirmation” – and then this morning the text was blue, and said “add her to friends” (which I’m assuming means she declined) – and I kind of figured it’s because I didn’t add a message in the friend invite – and now after reading this I feel a lot better :P
LOL, hey!! what’s wrong w. ‘hi you’re hot!’
I’m glad I found your blog. I like your writing style – friendly and easygoing, but still useful.
I found you because I did a google search to find out how to enable the “add message” feature to my facebook friend requests. I used to always add messages to let people know who I was (or to just say hi, if I was sure they knew me) but that feature isn’t there any more. The button’s gone. And facebook answered several thousand questions for me, but not that one.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
I completely agree that anyone sending a friend request should have a valid connection other than just sending the request to add to their list. I recently joined and I invited what I thought was a friend from high school who lives about 15 minutes away from me. She and I used to hang out and have several mutual friends in common. We met a few years ago and I was invited to her home where she was having a Juice Plus party. So I bought the vitamins and then decided not to continue and never heard back from her even though I called her once or twice to keep in touch. After she didn’t respond I didn’t pursue anything and then she actually emailed me years later and I reached out to her a few months after I received her email and we reconnected again via email this time. She expressed interest about getting together and told me that she was yet again on another business venture with another MLM. I was pleasantly surprised letting her know that my employers were part owners of the company and then after that I never heard from her again. I sent her a friend invite through FaceBook along with a note touching base and wishing her well and then saw that her pending request had disappeared. I actually laughed and thought that if I really wanted her to be among my list of friends that I should probably tell her I’m in the market for some vitamins or looking to be in her down pyramid with her cheesy biz venture.
Haha! I just found this after searching google being a victim earlier this morning. I completely agree! And of course it’s extremely awkward if you happen to see this person later because of a mutual friend meet up… whoops.
Same as Lucas there. But now we got this post to send them zombies!
BTW, has anyone ever received a friend request without the corresponding e-mail message? That config’s on, I checked.
Just checked the rest of the comments here; really interesting material, I’d say…!
And for example, if you recognize someone at some cafe (a friend of Friendston McFriendinator) it’s as if you go and greet that person, tap the shoulder and all, and when they reply “hi there”…
…you just stare. And silence. Blank, nothing. Not logical, unless you’re an inflatable puppet.
Interesting blog.
I used to send a message with every friend request. Not one single person ever replied, or even acknowledged the message – they would just accept the request. So I concluded the etiquette was to not send a message and gave up.
Now I have two friend requests pending for days – people I know and like, but it’s through a work connection and I’m left wondering why they won’t accept my requests.
Different etiquette for different people?
Can I retract a friend request??