Social vs Business Networking

Standing outside church on Christmas Eve, Cody Kanz and I talked about how much fun we were having reading each other's status updates on Facebook. He asked me if I thought Facebook was going to change the way we interact with our friends. Considering he is 20 years younger and ten times cooler than I am, I thought it was extraordinarily diplomatic of him to wonder what I thought about anything. At the time, I didn't have much of an answer for him. I think I said something like, "Uh, well, that's an interesting question."

It is an interesting question and one that I've revisited many times in the weeks since Christmas. I still don't have an answer, but I've expanded the question to include business contacts. Now it's an even more interesting question.

Will Facebook join LinkedIn and Twitter and become an indispensable business networking tool? Has it already happened? I think so.

In every Interviewing Skills workshop and Job Search Seminar we teach, Casey and I talk about the importance of making sure your online reputation matches your business reputation when you are looking for a job. Even very low-tech recruiters now Google their candidates before submitting them for open positions. They're going to have to work a lot harder to take you seriously as an applicant after they've seen pictures of you drinking shots at a party and passed out on a boat in the middle of the lake.

When people ask me how to start building a business network, I always say "Talk to your friends." Now, this includes your online friends, and their friends, and their friends. The lines between social networking and business networking are blurring to the point that they may no longer exist.

If unemployment continues to rise and layoffs outpace hiring at major corporations, finding a job will require creativity and a willingness to leverage the contacts you have. This spring, an enormous number of graduating seniors will be spending Spring Break at home with their parents. They'll be talking to Mom and Dad and Aunt Ruth about who they know who might be hiring in June. They'll be begging their parents to host barbecues and cocktail parties where they will be networking like crazy.

Here's the thing they are going to learn: Mom and Dad and Aunt Ruth are all on Facebook already. So are their friends. They know what you've been up to.

So while I still don't have an answer for Cody about whether or not Facebook will change how we interact with our friends, I think maybe I should tell him that the economy and fear of unemployment will definitely change how we interact with Facebook.