Is It OK to "Friend" Your Boss or Your Staff From Work on Social Media?

Podcast is a great innovation. I can download radio programs from Japan and listen to them during my commute every day. One podcast in particular that I listen to regularly is called "Session 22" (and its predecessor "DIG") produced by TBS Radio in Japan. Its a prime time radio talk show where the host interact with guests and listeners to cover variety of hot and trendy topics in Japan. It's a great way for me to keep up with my Japanese as well as to keep up with the current events in Japan.

A recent episode covered a topic of social media (or social networking services / SNS) and workplace. More specifically, the host posed the question whether it is okay to "friend" your boss, your staff, or your colleagues at work on SNS? What surprised me about the episode was the ignorance of the host and the producer of the show. It surprised me enough to prompt me to write it on this blog. 

There are variety of SNSs out there, each with its target audience and objective. Twitter is different from Facebook; and LinkedIn has its niche focus different from Google+. But the host completely ignored that these SNSs are different and treated them as one big SNS service. He went on to discuss whether it is okay to "follow", "friend" or "connect" with someone from work on SNSs. He missed the boat complete on this. I would have focused the discussion on the fact that there are distinctions among the SNSs; so here are my take on some of the major SNSs.

Twitter - its a tool to broadcast information in an open forum to the whole Twitter community; therefore, its more a place to gather and share with the broader community of similar interest. Now, I can enhance my "The Amazing Race" experience by sharing the moment with thousands of other viewers at the same as each episode is aired using #TheAmazingRace hashtag. 

Facebook - its a tool to stay engaged with network of friends that you interact with in the real physical world. That may be with your family, your friends from school, and yes, your friends from work. But you would "friend" those from work only if you would also interact with them outside of work and share your private life with. 

LinkedIn - its a tool to network with professionals in your field of work. This is where you should be "connected" with your boss, staff or colleagues. 

You may have noticed that each SNS is a tool. Each time we have any SNS related discussion, it is important to remember that SNS is a mere tool available to us as a convenience to enhance the real physical world we live in. It is true that SNSs exist in virtual reality; but its not a separate and apart from the real physical world; but rather its still a part of the real physical world and should be viewed as a mean to an end. 

I go back to my earlier comment that each SNS has its own audience and objective. If we focus our discussion on the distinctions, then the question of whether its okay to "friend" someone from work becomes irrelevant.