FACEBOOK ETHICS: Don’t throw sheep at your clients.

We live in the Facebook era: it’s our lifestyle, our obsession – and our curse. Getting fired for badmouthing your company on Facebook or updating your profile while out sick is not big news anymore. It can happen to anybody. (What if you… throw a sheep at your boss or a client – a.k.a. superpoke – by mistake?!)

Staying true to your company and yourself can be a challenge – especially if you are walking a thin line between Facebooking for fun and for business. Balancing your daily chatter with friends and maintaining fan pages and groups for your clients can be tricky. How would your friends react to promotional messages constantly appearing in your status updates – and occasionally, in their inboxes? What would your client think if she stumbles upon a picture of you passed out at that friend’s party last weekend?

How to make sure your personal Facebook page doesn’t harm your career, company, or your client? Here are some basic rules everyone should follow:

•  Take a stand for your privacy – Learn to modify privacy settings on your personal page and applications you download. Always having to play around with privacy controls on different apps can be annoying – but it’s worth going through.
•  Safety first – The first thing people see on Facebook when they search for you (and that could be anybody, from your elementary school teacher to a prospective employer!) is your profile picture. So start with a decent profile photo – plain and conservative. Modesty is a virtue. 
•  Stay civil – No frivolous imagery. No references to unsafe and possibly illegal behavior. No controversial political statements. Facebook is a public space, just like the streets, schools and offices of the real world. You probably wouldn’t start taking your clothes off on a lunch break in Madison Square Park – so why would you do that on your Facebook wall?

And remember: Facebook never “forgets.” Even if you post something and then take it down instantly, you leave a trace. In the blink of an eye, your every update goes viral. Be safe and keep your face(book) looking great.