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Facebook, Social Networking, and Boundaries

I admit it; I enjoy seeing what other people are up to on Facebook. In between the new wedding, vacation, and baby pictures are status updates about my friends’ daily lives, including: waking up with hangovers, supper plans, bra colors for breast cancer awareness, and complaints about the weather. I know there many who are using Facebook as a way to market their businesses and keep in touch with family and friends. While social networking creates a great way to keep in contact with friends, family, and colleagues, it poses many potential professional boundary problems with clients, especially for massage professionals.

When you accept clients as friends, you may be inviting your clients to view pictures of the ugly sweater party you attended, family gatherings, or your best friend’s bachelor/bachelorette party, as well as your business life. Social networking profiles could ultimately affect a client’s view of you as a professional or affect their comfort with recommending family or friends to your business. When you request clients to be your friend on Facebook, many may be uncomfortable with this new dual role, or see it as an invasion of their privacy.

So what do you do?
I do not use any social networking sites.
I don’t Facebook, but I use other social networking sites.
I have my privacy settings so people cannot find me.
I do not accept or request clients as friends on Facebook in an effort to create strong boundaries between my personal and professional life.
I accept clients as friends, but do not request them as friends to allow them privacy.
I invite clients to be friends, but keep my profile very professional. They have the right to ignore my request.
I keep a business site separate from my personal site.
I accept and request clients as friends. If they don’t like what they see, there are plenty of other massage therapists out there for them.

How have you established client boundaries with social networking? When a client requests you as friend, do you ignore the request or accept? Do you explain to clients your policies on social networking?

Ivy Hultquist

Advanced Massage Techniques – Donating 50% of all online continuing education sales to charity. Through February, 50% of sales will go to relief efforts in Haiti.

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Comment by Las Vegas Massage In Summerlin on March 20, 2010 at 8:36am: Hi Ivy!

I was a bit cranky yesterday, so thanks for understanding ;)

I also understand when you mention professional boundaries and ethics, but here's the thing...

Well, no, changed my mind ;)

I don't really feel like getting into this at this time. This is a HUGE topic for me and seems I've door a poor job of explaining it with the written word. I've had this discussion with many therapists and the conclusion I've come to is I really wish we could all get face to face and discuss this and demonstrate ;)

Have an excellent weekend, I know I'm going to!

kris

Comment by Ivy Hultquist on March 19, 2010 at 4:42pm: Kris,
First of all, I think you may have misunderstood my post. I do not think social media is bad. The purpose of my post was to make people aware of social media boundaries. I admit it, I am a stickler for strong professional ethics and boundaries. Ethics are the foundation of a successful business. My only "fear" is that some people use social media as a social tool and marketing tool simultaneously, which can blur personal and professional boundaries. Social media is an amazing tool, when used correctly.

Ivy Hultquist

Comment by Las Vegas Massage In Summerlin on March 19, 2010 at 9:54am: ~

Greetings Ivy, everyone ;) Unsure how I missed this discussion but I did ;)

I've found social networking to be a great help in regards to attracting clients and communicating with current clients. It's really very simple once one gets the hang of it.

I'll be polite and leave it at this, as I quickly grow weary of these discussions that begin such as this one: "This is what I see from my limited point of view, and this COULD happen, this MAY occur, etc., etc.."

Basically, FEAR. As well as, "I don't really know how to use social media, so let's lay my fears and negative beliefs on it and then attempt to discuss it under the guise of an open mind." Bleh.

If one already has the mindset that social media is bad (which is what I see in the original post) or that it MAY blur the boundaries or COULD present ethics problems, what's the use in discussing it?

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree ;)

Kris

Comment by Angela Lind on February 5, 2010 at 10:41pm: I have two profiles on facebook: the personal and the professional. My personal account is private and can see it only people I request. Even people can't add me, I have to request them. My personal profile doesn't display my full name either. I would never let my clients see my personal profile. Keeping personal separate from business is the best thing to do.

Comment by Vlad on January 29, 2010 at 1:36pm: It's possible to categorize your friends within one facebook account, but many people don't do that because they're not aware that you can do it. So if you do accept client friend requests, they don't have to see the wall posts of your friends who might be referring to a drinking session last weekend. Go to help in facebook and then search for friend lists information. This can be used as a filtering method and for setting up different privacy levels.

One thing that everyone needs to be aware of is their privacy settings. Please look at this for more info. You might be surprised at some of the info on that video. Everyone should Go to settings->privacy settings (top left in your facebook account) and check your settings

I do what my nieces do - my name in facebook is not my full name, so it doesn't even show up if you google my full name or if you search for my full name in facebook. It keeps clients from friend requesting me. Also, even if they search for my last name, my profile picture isn't a headshot of me.
However, I do have a few clients as friends on there, but they are "like-minded" and I've known them for a long time.

Some therapists have used facebook to their advantage in setting up a group for their business though and then clients can become a fan. I haven't done that, but I hear that people have got business from it.

Both Kay and you make a great point though - keeping personal separate from business is a wise thing to do.

Comment by Kay on January 29, 2010 at 9:34am: I think this is a very interesting point. Social Networking has become the ultimate way of communication for most people. In an age of texting, im, and blog sites.........does anyone communicate in a direct manner anymore?

My advice would be to utilize the craze of social networking to your benefit as a marketing, and business portal only! Your life as a professional therapist, and your personal life should always be separate. That is the most logical way to keep boundaries up, and limit unethical situations that could cause a break in the client/therapist relationship. If you like to use Facebook and other blog sites for personal entertainment, be sure to keep it personal, don't let it intermingle with your professional site.