25% of workers are friends with their boss on Facebook, but it may be negatively impacting on their careers (especially if they are part of the 1 in 8 that vent about a bad day at work on Facebook too!). Here's our guide on how to be friends with the boss on Facebook and keep your job.

2. Contents
3- Intro
5- Don’t Post In Anger
6- Vary your friend privacy settings
8- Respect the rules
9- Clean up your act
11 - A picture says a thousand words
12 - Don’t stretch the truth
13 - Show your best side
14 - Finally, remember you're amassing digital content
every day of your life
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3. Entering the world of work today is a very different experience compared to
what it was ten let alone 20 years ago.
A decade ago, you would have had a computer and most probably an email
address. You may or may not have had access to the Internet. Assuming
your workplace allowed it, surfing the web was a more pedestrian (not to
mention slower) experience than it is today.
As a result, the way you interacted with people online was what you might call
point to point. If you had a bad day at work, you might email your partner or
a friend about it. That would be the end of it.
Today, you'll be entering an environment where the chances are most of your
workmates are on Facebook and / or other social networks like Twitter and the
photo-sharing service Instagram.
Those networks in turn have become very often the default channel for us to
express our thoughts and feelings to friends, family, and (in the case of a
network like Twitter) very often complete strangers.
Social media use now spans all age groups and so in a lot of cases, you'll
actually be sharing your online opinions with your boss or potential
future employers.
As part of AVG’s on-going "Digital Diaries" studies, which looks at how
technology impacts different areas of our lives, we polled 4,500 18-25 year
olds in eleven countries across the globe to see how they use social media
at work.
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4. A quarter of respondents overall – and as many as a third in the USA alone -
told us they were Facebook friends with the boss. In the vast majority of
cases, this is most likely perceived as just normal office interaction; however,
it also means that what these individuals do socially outside of work is also
visible to the person who ultimately manages them.
Social media opens up both challenges and opportunities for anyone currently
in or applying for their first job.
At AVG, we've put together some suggestions to help you shine online with
your current and any future employer in mind.
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5. Don’t post in anger
It sounds obvious, but it is a golden rule that is not always observed. One in
eight 18-25 year olds told us that they'd been abusive about their boss or
employer after a bad day at work.
Depending on what you post and what company rules are, this could get you in
trouble. In a worst case scenario, such comments could actually get you
disciplined or even fired. Not only could this cause problems in your current
job, it is also possible that it may affect your future career prospects as well.
What is the likelihood of this actually happening? Put yourself in the shoes of a
future employer who searches your social media profiles and finds unflattering
comments about your place of work.
They’ll be wondering: If you have done that in the past, then who is to say you
won't do it again in your new job?
It marks you out as a loose cannon and someone who can't be trusted to
follow the most basic rules, let alone respect company confidentiality.
As a result, before posting anything at all related to your place of work, take a
step back and try to understand if this something you would feel comfortable
saying out loud in the middle of the office? If not, don't post.
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6. Vary your friend privacy settings
Most (80 percent) of the 18-25 year olds we surveyed said they do restrict
their Facebook profiles to friends only. However, that still means 20 percent
have Facebook profiles that are completely open for everyone to see.
However, far fewer (40 percent) distinguish between what information
Facebook friends who are also work colleagues can see on their profiles and
what they post for their personal friends.
The distinction is a crucial one as the definition of a Facebook friend can vary
greatly. It can be your best friend or your spouse. It can be someone you
last saw in school ten years ago. It can be someone you met once at a
conference. Or, increasingly, it can be someone you work with.
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7. In fact, Facebook tells us that someone who joined the network two years ago
will now have an average of 305 friends. That's a lot of people who can look at
(and potentially re-share) what you are posting on a daily basis.
Facebook allows you to group your friends into lists and selectively share
content. To see how it’s done, check out the FAQs on the Facebook site.
Facebook already lets you group friends into close friends, acquaintances and
"restricted" lists as a default. Facebook specifically tells us that the latter
might apply to your boss.
People on your restricted list can only see your public profile and posts and
anything you tag them in - in other words, the bare minimum.
You can also create custom lists, for example, if you wanted to group people at
work into different offices or departments. The fact is the ability to filter
content on Facebook is already there.
Finally, if you are on Google+, make use of the circles which allow you to
group your contacts. Create one for your work colleagues and any looser
connections. Create another for people with whom you really do feel
comfortable sharing more widely.
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8. Respect the rules
The chances are your new workplace will have a set of rules about how you
can and cannot use social media at work. A third of young adults told us that
their workplace actually restricts or bans access to social networks.
Even if your employer hasn't published these rules, you'll still be covered by
what it says in your contract. In particular, there are three things to look
out for:
1 - Confidentiality: If you mention in online forums what you are doing at
work, are you giving away any company secrets?
2 - Bringing your employer into disrepute: If pictures appear of you "over-
indulging" at the office party, you could fall foul of this.
The same applies if you post opinions or comments on websites that a lot of
your workmates could find offensive (e.g. comments deemed to be racist,
sexist or homophobic).
3 - Intellectual property: It is worth remembering that most employment
contracts have clauses saying that what you produce or create at work belongs
to the employer.
Again, use commonsense. If you were standing in a crowded train or bus,
would you feel comfortable talking about some of the things you have posted
online especially if your workplace is involved? If no, then don't say it.
Finally, using your own personal accounts to share inappropriate comments
isn't an excuse. If you give away trade secrets via your own Twitter account,
that's still a breach of your work contract.
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9. Clean up your act
In our study, we found that less than half (43 percent) of young adults had
done an online audit of their social media accounts and cleaned out any
embarrassing or incriminating information.
For the 57 percent who haven't done this, this should be something they
should be doing regularly. If you fall into this category, here are a few tips to
get you started:
1 - Use Google. As a first step, search for yourself on Google and set up a
Google alert on your name.
Remember to allow for misspellings. If your name is Claire, also search for
Clare. If you are Robyn, search for Robin and so on. Search for e.g. "Clare
Smith" as well as Clare Smith and Clare + (the name of your employer).
Then set up a Google alert, so you get a notification in your inbox whenever
there's a mention about you online (google.com/alerts).
If you have a Google account, then use the Google Dashboard to search for
mentions of your name and your email address. If you don't have one, create
one, as this is a very useful service.
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10. 2 - Use other services for social media searches. There are a number that
allow you to search for social media mentions of yourself. One example is
Social Mention while another is Who's Talkin.
Twitter also has a straight forward search function - search.twitter.com.
3 - Don’t use silly names for your social media profiles. Ideally your social
media profiles should be consistent (so that someone can find you easily) and
use an ID that is fairly close to your own name.
In some circumstances, you might not want to use your own name, but use a
description of what you do, for example @johneditor.
However, @iluvjustinbieber might not give someone the right impression when
applying for a job! Twitter and other social networks actually allow you to
change your ID so you can overcome such youthful indiscretions.
4 - Look at your content from the point of view of an employer. Now that
you've seen what's publicly available about you, how would a potential
employer view it? Is there anything you think is embarrassing or you'd really
rather not be there for everyone to see? If so, the next step is to
address this.
5 - Remove incriminating content if you can. Unhappy with a comment you
posted in anger on a blog? Some will let you remove it. Don't want everyone
to see that photo a Facebook friend posted? Untag yourself. Do you think in
retrospect you shouldn't have sent that tweet? Delete it.
Note, deleting a tweet won't prevent someone seeing it if it’s already in their
feed. However, it will remove it from Twitter search.
6 - Take control of your own online reputation. The final step is to try to
positively influence what appears about you when people search your name.
There are a few ways to doing this. We'll talk a little later about creating a
personal online hub, or blog.
If you are really motivated, there is also evidence that an active profile on
Google Plus (Google's social network) will help your search rankings, if you are
also a prolific writer online and use Google Authorship to claim and group your
writing. Kiss Metrics has a useful guide on their blog about how to
do this here.
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11. A picture says a thousand words
There's that famous saying that a picture says a thousand words and indeed,
there is research that people will be 100 percent+ more likely to interact with
a Facebook post that includes a photo.
Especially with more and more of us using our smartphones as our main
camera, a lot of social media posts now contain a visual element. In two
years, the mobile photo sharing network Instagram has grown to 100+ million
users. If you use Instagram, that content will be completely public, unless
you've decided to lock your account.
Meanwhile on Facebook, 300 million photos are posted a day.
If you post pictures on your social networks, remember you're essentially
providing a visual diary of what you do on a day-by-day basis.
As a result, take care when posting any kind of content. Take extra care
with pictures.
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12. Don’t stretch the truth
For a lot of people, a profile on the professional social network LinkedIn is
starting to replace the standard CV. LinkedIn is a certainly great network for
anyone looking to build their career.
It's a good place to show off your professional achievements, an excellent
place to connect with people who can help you in your career, and increasingly,
a useful place to search for jobs.
Don't however be tempted to stretch the truth when creating your profile and
exaggerating your achievements.
Even a future employer does take every word you've written at face value,
remember that most companies still ask for references. So if you've said
anything that's not true, you'll risk being found out at the final stage.
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13. Show your best side
Finally, and possibly most importantly, it’s not all bad news. A good online
footprint can actually enhance your job prospects.
1 - Use LinkedIn and don't be afraid to ask for recommendations. We've
already mentioned the professional social network LinkedIn. If you haven't
got a profile, create one, and start connecting with everyone you've ever
worked with or been to school / college with.
LinkedIn has a very useful 'new starter' guide to help you on your way which
you can find here.
Once you've built your profile and connections, don't be afraid to ask for a
recommendation. These can come from people who have managed you, co-
workers and previous suppliers / customers. Crucially, if you don't like what
they've said about you, it won't appear on your profile.
2 - Group your social media profiles in one place. Flavors.me and About.me
are examples of online hubs you can create to showcase all your different
profiles and content.
For example, once you have created about.me/yourname, you can then add in
all your various social networks as well as write a short biography about
yourself.
These profiles will help your search ranking and About.me has published a few
simple steps to help here.
3 - Run a blog. If you write online, or if you have some kind of hobby or
interest you'd like to showcase, think about creating a blog.
There are several alternatives here - Blogger and Wordpress are the traditional
blogging platforms and work well with the written word. However, the world's
most popular blogging platform is now Tumblr, which is both very visual and
has a more informal scrapbook style. Tumblr, and a newer alternative, Jux,
work well especially if you have pictures or imagery you want to share.
Why can having a blog assist your career? First of all, it’s another way to
positively influence your search profile. It also gives a potential employer an
insight into your personality and (where appropriate) your writing style. It
makes you much more three dimensional to anyone considering you for a job.
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14. Finally, remember you're amassing digital content every
day of your life
Every day, by posting, commenting, sharing, you are adding to the information
that exists about you.
In a year, that could amount to hundreds of different pieces of content that are
around. Fast-forward ten years and according to Facebook boss Mark
Zuckerberg, you’ll be sharing 1000x what you are now!
What do you want all this digital content to say about you?
How easily do you want it to be discovered? What can you do, to make sure
that the bits that are publicly accessible and will help you in your personal and
professional life?
These are questions that shouldn't be left to chance, instead, your digital
footprint is something you should be actively managing as more and more
people will be getting their first impressions about you online.
For more information on AVG Digital Diaries, go to www.avgdigitaldiaries.com
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