Unfriending on Facebook for Fun and Sanity

Facebook can be very frustrating. Early on, I accepted every friend request that came my way. I was being social, right?

Shortly after hitting my 5000 friend limit, my account was suspended. After creating a bit of a hullaballoo (don\’t get to use that word very often), my account was re-activated.

Then came pages. Now I had a place to send people who wanted to follow me. The numbers quickly grew.

But my Facebook stream was unmanageable. After all, I was \”friends\” with 5000 people, many of whom I do not know.

I\’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a Facebook stream that was populated only by people I actually know.

I\’m not going to wonder for much longer.

I am unfriending thousands of people on Facebook.

You see, having two places to post has led to a bit of confusion for me. If I post on my regular profile I can reach 5000 people who have friended me.

If I post on my fan page, I can reach over 12,000 people.

The problem is this. I have personal things I like to post and I have business things I like to post. How to separate the two?

The answer has become simple, but a bit painful to execute.

My personal page at http://facebook.com/joelcomm/ will become just that… a personal page. It will be reserved for family and friends (defined as people I actually know who I wish to have relationship with). Only friends will be able to see content of this page. And Matt Clark at Tweetpages.com has created a great image to direct others to my fan page.

My fan page at http://facebook.com/joelcommfan will be used for that which I wish to make public. Easy, right?

Well, perhaps not so easy.

I now have the task of going through all 5000 \”friends\” and unfriending those who don\’t meet the relationship criteria as I have defined it.

Back in November 2009 I unfollowed everyone on Twitter. I found a great bulk tool for making it possible. Unfollowing 70,000 might have taken a long time!

Unfortunately, there is no tool for \”bulk\” unfriending people on Facebook. And if I used a bulk tool I would also end up wiping out my real friends.

I also can\’t assign this task to someone in my office. After all, no one else knows who I wish to keep as friends. It could be disastrous.

So, one click at a time I must unfriend people that I will no longer connect to on my regular page. I imagine this will take me a number of hours. Over the next week you will see my friend count drop dramatically. I am curious to see what the count is once I am done pruning.

I apologize to anyone who may be offended by this move, but I gotta do what I gotta do. I hope to see you on my fan page at http://facebook.com/joelcommfan

Let the unfriending begin!

What are your thoughts on this? How do you separate your personal life from business life on Facebook?