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Risks of Social Networking

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“I trashed my entire LinkedIn profile. Just got rid of it.” Why, I asked. “Because people, other photographers, were contacting my clients through my LinkedIn profile.” This photographer, who has asked to remain anonymous, reflects a growing concern about the privacy and interworkings of social networking sites like LinkedIn, Myspace, and Facebook, among others.

(Continued after the Jump)

It would go without saying that if you’re working for a company with many employees, you might have clients as your friends/connections. Yet, how are you using the tool? It is a dangerous toy – a place to pass the time, or a communications solution for the newly graduated generation? There are many types of people who use facebook (The Multiple Facebook Personalities, 4/15/08), but instead, there are people with more than one persona on these sites. Having more than one account is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service, and you risk having both closed. Yet, if you feel you must be on it, maybe you should think about it further.

Many people on Facebook, for example, have been on since college, and they have pictures of them partying, and otherwise just being unprofessional. They remain connected to their past, and keep up with everyone that way. But do you really want your new boss, colleagues, and clients seeing those images? Of course not.

With your boss, or other professional colleagues on Facebook, do you really want your high school friends to be able to contact your employer, or post photos of you that your boss might see from the past weekends’ homecoming celebration you were supposedly home from work sick for?

When it comes to freelancers – specifically photographers, it’s easy to see nothing wrong with connecting to them. Then going further, it seems a no brainer to connect with your clients. There’s where the problem starts. Your friendly photographer colleagues should know that it’s wrong to connect with your clients. Yet they don’t. Or, they do, and don’t care. Further, what if one of your clients is Time, and the other Newsweek? ExxonMobil and Sunoco? Will that create a problem? Surely it could. Do you want to risk it?

I am on Facebook (my profile), and that’s where my friends are. I am also on LinkedIn (my profile), and that’s where I would be comfortable linking with clients. I try not to have the two cross, but I know that it’s happened, and there’s the risk. If you want to share with your clients – and prospective clients – what’s going on in your world, have a blog that you share your day-to-day assignments and thoughts on. Be sure it’s being written with your professional end audience in mind.

Surely some etiquette is in order. Suffice to say – don’t go shopping for new clients on social networking sites when those new clients could well come at the expense of your friends. That’s not very friendly. Think twice – no three times – before posting embarassing photos of your friends on a public social networking site. It was funny in college – now, not so much. If nothing else, make the photos private.

Above all, be good. Be thoughtful, and do no harm. To yourself, or your friends.
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Originally published on Photo Business News & Forum on October 3, 2008. Comments are closed; this post is part of the archive.

19 thoughts on “Risks of Social Networking”

  1. As a german photographer i’m using Xing, where you can decide whether your direct contacts are visible or not.
  2. As an editor, I almost never connect to photographers who are not close friends or colleagues. I currently receive hundreds of emails from photographers, fellow editors, retouchers and agencies soliciting me with promotional material and requests for work. One of my primary email addresses is virtually unusable due to the amount of spam I receive.

    It’s nothing personal, but I can’t hit the “unsubscribe” button fast enough.

    If I need to find a photographer, I can do so through any number of self-promotional sites, agents or directories. Spamming my inbox to tell me that you’re the world’s foremost photographer for London landmarks, or that you’re currently covering small town life in Minsk, just reinforces the reason why editors and art directors often gravitate towards one-stop-shop sources or discovering sources on their own.
  4. your post seems to point to a deeper-rooted issue than “what happens on the Web is forever.”

    The larger problem is that the general sense of personal morality (and reflection before action) and responsibility has become somewhat degraded in recent years.

    That issue manifests itself in both intentional and unintentional hurtful/harmful acts on the Web and in meatspace.

    It’s one thing to aggressively compete in the marketplace, it’s entirely another to be an a-hole.

    People seem to be forgetting ethics, courtesy and morality.
  5. A subject close to my heart!

    I use facebook for networking both social and professional, and as a photographer many professional contacts have become friends and vice versa.

    Personally I wouldn’t really have an issue with one of my facebook contacts contacting a client of mine.

    Reason: they are not me, and nothing can replace the relationship I have with that client. Sure, there’s a ”risk” there, but I would say it’s a much greater risk to ignore the potential that social networks, properly applied, can have for one’s business.

    And besides, as Anonymous editor suggested above, most online relationships have a basis in the real world anyway. I don’t hire someone just because they add me as a fried on facebook!
  6. I’ll admit it, all you photographers who have your client lists on your websites? I google them and add them to my marketing efforts if I think I’d be a good fit. I’ve found this to be a good way to find small, niche magazines that otherwise I would never have known existed. I do not go out of my way to find clients this way, and am definitely not trying to “steal” anyone’s contacts, just if I happen across something that I haven’t heard of before I do the research just like I would for any other lead.

    Actually, I just got awarded a big job for a client I found that way, although the photog’s list I originally saw them on is on the other side of the country and wouldn’t have been considered for this assignment anyways.
  7. Anonymous, I don’t have any problem with people doing that. Go ahead and google my clients if you want to!

    I really don’t think there’s any moral issue there. I think it would be a very protective and, I might add, insecure photographer who jealously guarded all of their contacts. Am I going to give away all my personal contacts? No, of course not. But if someone wants to have a crack at acquiring business with a previous client of mine, then I can’t have an issue with that.

    Mario Testino shoots a heck of a lot of work for Vogue but I’m sure he doesn’t lose sleep worrying about people ”stealing” his work for them.

    I really don’t think this is much of an issue.
  8. Sounds like you’re afraid of a little competition, John. If your relationship is solid with your clients then why do you care if other photographers contact them? BTW, you can ‘hide’ your contacts on LinkedIn and still keep your profile up.
  9. I am the photographer that John wrote about who dropped his Linked-In account.

    Contacting a client is one thing. Bad mouthing me to my client is very different animal.

    Adbase and Agency Access are good research vehicles.

    Using Linked-In to go after a client of another shooter is just bad karma. My client laughed at this person and told him he did not hold a candle to me as a shooter or as a person.

    Call it what you want, I closed the account down for that reason plus APA just started a linked-in group and I was getting hit by way too many people I had never heard of asking for a connection.
  10. Woah…well bad mouthing someone to one of their clients certainly crosses the line.

    But anyway, what you say just goes to show that you can’t replace valid, established personal/working relationships.
  11. It reminds me of those vapid uber polished “What we have been up to this past year” letters from one of our relatives enclosed with their with Xmas cards. You know, the ones that boasts the success of every single slightly related member of their particular household. Meanwhile failing to mention the drop out nephew or little princess’s latest divorce. How many blogs can an art buyer read in a given day? Don’t people who bloviate about themselves in shameless fashion have a real lives? Volunteering at my kids school or substitute teaching has a much better return for my future than whipping out a big dick of a PR release for everyone to kiss like the Pope’s ring. What happened to slow steady seasonal evaluations of one’s progress and successes, not these minute by minute press releases that are just shallow phantom self proclaimed pr statements?
  12. This is what struck me as odd about Linked In in the first place-

    The demographic they’re targeting is a demographic that really doesn’t understand social networking.

    I feel like Linked In is a really stuck-up, self aggrandizing , “we’re so above social networking” social networking site.

    Seriously, if you have this much trouble sharing your REAL life with other people, professional or personal then simply don’t join a social network. Stay off the grid, you’re probably too boring and stuck up anyway.
  14. The point is not about sharing one’s social attributes. Which are, in my mind, precisely constructed because they are trying to run away from the fact that they are indeed boring and lead typical milk toast lives and this networking allows one to vicariously live an inflated brand of themselves on the web.
    The point is about where do we draw the line between respecting our current and future employer’s business privacy and still be able to professionally marketing ourselves. Social networking into business circles carries a tremendous amount of restraint and discretion. Again, it’s all about how you view the investment in your time and your expectations for return. I personally feel like so many other things that happen on line, it’s very easy for people to jump on the latest band wagon of self promotion, that it quickly becomes a bloated Hindenburg of abuse and unruly navigation for the exact people it was designed to attract.
  15. “The point is not about sharing one’s social attributes. Which are, in my mind, precisely constructed because they are trying to run away from the fact that they are indeed boring and lead typical milk toast lives and this networking allows one to vicariously live an inflated brand of themselves on the web.
    The point is about where do we draw the line between respecting our current and future employer’s business privacy and still be able to professionally marketing ourselves. Social networking into business circles carries a tremendous amount of restraint and discretion. Again, it’s all about how you view the investment in your time and your expectations for return. I personally feel like so many other things that happen on line, it’s very easy for people to jump on the latest band wagon of self promotion, that it quickly becomes a bloated Hindenburg of abuse and unruly navigation for the exact people it was designed to attract.”

    Well, at least you like your own writing.
  16. i do my artist pages on blogs. I sit down and crank it out. Sloppy, poor grammar, it matters not, the thoughts are freed. Thanks for engaging me. Currently there are 235 million entries in Google for “anonymous”. I must be part of something big and popular. Proud to a club member with you.
  17. No one should have to worry about “stealing” contacts through social networks. If someone really wanted the info they could find it out anyway with or without a buddy list. We should spend more energy becoming better photographers in our genres and offer of something of value to people so then they won’t need to look elsewhere.
  18. I tend to agree with Richard. I don’t worry too much about people stealing from me via LinkedIn. I use it to market my name over the network. If I can show up on people’s LinkedIn lists, it’s basically the same as them receiving a promo card from me or making it onto their rolodex. All I’m doing is making it easier for them to find me. At that point, my work will or will not sell me.
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