I will give you some key advice as someone who lives and breathes social networking:

Your network is your net worth.

Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, in the future, will be one of your most valuable resources.

I consider this lifetime collection of relationships to be THE most valuable asset I have.

Be mindful of how you build your network and aware that you can quickly reach your 5,000 friend limit.

After that, you will lose your ability to add new friends–and the contacts you meet in future years could be more important.

If another service replaces Facebook you can export this data into an email list — it’s easier to add contacts in LinkedIn or Facebook than it is to tediously input business cards into a contact management system.  

But also, there are significant advantages to this way of connecting to people — it lets you into their networks. It gives you a window into their world.

Don’t just let Facebook “data mine” your contacts–remember that information is available to you as as well and it is an asset.

Your PERSONAL page is far more powerful than your FAN page will ever be.

Consider it your inner circle.  

People will assume you actually know anyone who is a “friend” here — so don’t let strangers be your friend until you check them out and decide if they are worth letting into your inner circle.

If you get a bad vibe about them, their profile looks phony or they are connected to shady characters — let them FOLLOW you or join your FAN page.

If you are a public figure — lecturer, speaker, author, performer — make sure to create a FAN page or PUBLIC FIGURE page so you can be tagged when announcements about you are posted online. 

This is critical for the social marketing managers who are promoting your events to be able to TAG you.  

Please also change your privacy settings so you can be tagged.  You can always reject or untag a post later.

Remember–QUALITY, not QUANTITY is what matters in virtual social networking–just as in real, face to face networking, or in magazine publishing where advertisers want “qualified” and targeted readers.  

Your network —  it will be

your net worth.

Choose wisely.