The whole rela­tion­ship spec­trum in social net­works is some­thing that bugs me more than a little.

I live with it, as I’ve no choice if I want to use these tools, but most net­works don’t ade­quately express the range of asso­ci­a­tions we have with peo­ple. The nuances of rela­tion­ship that we express on a daily basis with peo­ple we work, play and live with aren’t nearly ade­quately expressed online. Some­thing like the XFN micro­for­mat has more nuance, although not nearly enough. There needs to be more.

So, on Face­book, which is a pretty com­plex social net­work, you’re either my friend, or not. Nowhere near enough. I need (and want) to be able to express whether we’ve met, worked together, share inter­ests, or are real-​​life friends and prob­a­bly a bunch of other vari­ants. I can sort of do this with groups, but it still feels inadequate.

LinkedIn is a slightly dif­fer­ent story. The focus there is very dif­fer­ent, and they have come a long way in terms of help­ing you to under­stand your own link­ages, but not in help­ing oth­ers under­stand your link­ages. So, for exam­ple, if some­one wants to know how I know Andrew and Matthew, they need to do a lit­tle trawl­ing. Again, inad­e­quate to my thinking.

I want the expres­sion of my rela­tion­ships on com­plex social net­works like Face­book and LinkedIn to be outward-​​facing, so that any­one who can see my social graph on these net­works can also see ade­quately expressed nuance in those rela­tion­ships. Are you a real-​​life friend, a col­league, a pro­fes­sional peer, my boss, my wife, my daugh­ter, some­one I went to school with?

Some­thing like Twit­ter, on the other hand, is very sim­ple. It’s largely a crowded room full of con­ver­sa­tion — either I fol­low you, or I don’t, and the same goes for you and your crowd. I think for Twit­ter, that’s enough. YMMV.

So, to the real point of this post, how, when and why I might con­nect to you on a social net­work. Oth­ers have done sim­i­lar pieces. I’m a par­tic­u­lar fan of Shel Israel’s Twit­ter and Face­book poli­cies. My poli­cies are loosely based on his. So, here goes.

  1. If I don’t know who you are, I’m unlikely to con­nect to you. If we don’t know each other, please accom­pany your request with a short note explain­ing why you are try­ing to con­nect. If your expla­na­tion makes sense, I’ll prob­a­bly con­nect. My email address is very pub­lic, so this shouldn’t be hard to do.
  2. If you are a brand, mar­ket­ing flack, or com­pany, I’m unlikely to con­nect with you. There are excep­tions, but they are few.
  3. If you know sev­eral of my friends or col­leagues, I’ll prob­a­bly con­nect to you. I’ll check with them first, and I’d still like a note from you, but your chances are pretty good.
  4. If I know your work, blog or com­mu­nity I’ll prob­a­bly con­nect to you. Again, a lit­tle expla­na­tion goes a long way, as do mutual connections.

Sim­ple enough, I’d say.