SALT LAKE CITY — Accepting a Facebook friend request from your boss, following a student on Instagram, liking photos from your co-worker’s beach vacation and connecting with your therapist on Twitter are all things that might seem appropriate, depending on your relationship and how you use social media. But in some cases, these actions can blur the line between professional and personal life and have serious, adverse consequences.
In the realm of social media, blurring boundaries is easy to do, said Alison Green, author and creator of the work advice site, Ask a Manager.
“Connecting with co-workers and other business contacts on Facebook can be a landmine,” Green said. “People often show aspects of themselves there that they wouldn’t normally share in a work context — like health issues, political beliefs, relationship trivia, and more. You might be fine opening up to co-workers that way — but proceed with caution because it can blur boundaries in a way that isn’t always helpful.”
A 2018 study by Igloo Software found that 68 percent of full-time employees were connected with some of their co-workers on social media. Millennials were less picky about who they connected with and were more than twice as likely as baby boomers to accept requests from any co-worker.
But Marie McIntyre, a workplace psychologist who runs a career coaching business in Atlanta, Georgia, said professionals might want to think more carefully about their online interactions. Well-intentioned social media posts can be misinterpreted and lead to accusations of sexual harassment or favoritism, for example. An increasing number of companies are developing social media policies to dictate appropriate behavior.
McIntyre said she advised a client whose manager started following her on Instagram and Facebook right after she started a new job. The boss, who was male, began commenting excessively on her posts. The comments were not overtly inappropriate but made her feel like her personal life was being monitored. She was new to the job however, and didn’t feel comfortable asking him to stop.
“Because managers are in a power position, even something as simple as friending someone on Facebook can have implications,” McIntyre said. “If you are a manager, you really have to think about it from the point of view of your employee and how it will be perceived.”
McIntyre’s advice to clients is to use available controls and filters to limit who can see your posts. She also encourages managers and employees to have frank conversations about social media use.
Admittedly, it can be hard to gauge what is appropriate and what is not in an increasingly connected world where social media is so pervasive, McIntyre said. Social media can be a useful tool for helping people communicate and understand one another better. So, if you want to know if it is cool or creepy to connect with your co-worker, your client, your masseuse or your kid’s piano teacher, the best thing to do is ask, she said.
Rules to follow
Career experts agree professionals should be sensitive to differences in power when connecting on social media. In general, it is more appropriate for people at the same level in a company to connect than for bosses and subordinates to be following each other on Facebook, Instagram or a number of other sites.
Sara Brueck Nichols, 41, from South Jordan, Utah said that as she moved into senior levels of management, she consciously set up rules for herself against friending any current subordinates or bosses on social media.
“It ensures I’m holding appropriate boundaries with my managers and my team, so there cannot be claims of favoritism, inappropriate relationships, or claims of misrepresenting the company,” said Brueck Nichols, who is a VP of marketing technology for a national health insurance company.
Power differentials can be a factor outside the traditional office setting as well, like between doctors and patients or parents and teachers. Alaina Stone, 47, is a high school English teacher who lives in Bluffdale, Utah. She has a policy of not accepting friend requests from students until after they’ve graduated.
“I’m their teacher, and while we can be friendly, I’m not their friend,” Stone said.
For Gladys Roberts, 27, who lives in Eagle Mountain, Utah, and works as a lab tech, it only makes sense to be friends with someone on Facebook or follow them on Instagram if she has a legitimate relationship with them outside of work. She is connected to two co-workers on social media. Both are similar in age, and they regularly do things like go out to eat, take coffee breaks and play cards together, she said.
“Overall I don’t like adding co-workers because I want to keep a professional relationship and I’d be scared that maybe a political or religious view or something I post might put my job at risk for some reason,” Roberts said.
Because everyone has different standards and uses social media differently, Boston-based business etiquette expert Kerri Garbis, president of Ovation Communication, recommends asking people directly, “what social media do you like to use?” Or, “I think it makes sense to connect online, what works best for you?”
Once you are connected with someone on social media, one strategy for figuring out what interactions are appropriate is to attach a physical activity to the online behavior in your mind, she said. For example, you can think of a ‘like’ as a high-five and a ‘heart’ as a hug. Anything you write, you should imagine saying out loud to a person’s face.
“Ask yourself, is it weird if I give my co-worker a high-five every time I see her in a bikini? Would I give a co-worker a hug if I saw a picture of her baby?” said Garbis. “Would I say this out loud to this person if they were standing in front of me, or would I keep this in my own brain?”
Ultimately, individuals, whether they are a boss or a subordinate, should be proactive with their privacy settings and should not be afraid to deny access to anyone they are uncomfortable sharing social posts with. On Facebook for example, you can share different content with different sets of people using lists. On Instagram, you can make your account private so people have to request to follow you, and on Twitter, you can block or mute people.
“It is your right to share what you want to share,” said Garbis. “Anytime anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, immediately disengage from that person. If you are within an organization, go to the proper channels, whether that is HR, or your boss.”
Gray area
Each social media platform has a different culture, and different unwritten rules of engagement. LinkedIn, which is designed for building a professional network, is the most appropriate for work relationships, said Leonard Kim, a personal branding expert based in Los Angeles. Instagram and Facebook feature more personal content. According to Kim, more people use Instagram to reach a wide audience, whereas Facebook tends to be for closer friends and family members. A platform like Twitter can be confusing because some people use it strictly for professional reasons, while some share more intimate parts of their lives.
In addition, the appropriateness of social media connection can be highly dependent on people’s personalities and company culture, Kim said. For full-time employees who spend more than 2,000 hours a year with their co-workers, it may be only natural to be interested in each others’ personal lives.
“There’s a lot of gray area,” Kim said.
Kim, who has more than 600,000 Twitter followers and 19,000 Instagram followers, credits social media for launching his career. His strategy has been to connect with as many different people as possible.
“If you are using your social media mostly for business, using it because you want to go out there and share your thought leadership, talk about the good things the industry and your company are doing … then it would be best to let people in so they can see you are a valuable asset,” Kim said. “It could lead to promotions and help you get ahead in your career.”