The cost of making social networking mistakes

CYBER SORTER:This week our social media agony aunt advises caution online in affairs of the heart and the office

Dear Cybersorter,

I met a guy at a party a couple of weeks ago. He was good craic and I liked him. He was flirtatious with me, and my friend who was with me agreed it wasn’t in my imagination.

I decided to send him a friend request on Facebook. Then I found out that he’s married, which makes me regret doing that. Is there any way to take back my request to be friends?

– RB

Dear RB,

You are in luck, as until recently there wasn’t a way to retract your friendship request. There is now. Search for the person on your Facebook page and click on them. Scroll down and click “Cancel Friendship Request” under his profile picture. It should give you a reassuring “Friendship Request Cancelled” message.

You should also be aware that when you request friendship from someone it opens up some of your Facebook profile to them for a limited period of time before they have accepted your request. They will be able to see the categories Basic, Personal, Work and Education Info and Friends.

All the same, be cautious when a friend agrees that someone finds you attractive. It is a very rare, possibly extinct, sort of friend who says, “No, he clearly didn’t fancy you at all.” Even if he didn’t.

Dear Cybersorter,

The company I work for is very excited about using Twitter to “put our message out there” and “get social” (their words, not mine).

Despite the Office Space style of their communication, I think they are right in wanting to build an online profile for the company and get potential clients and customers to connect with us.

The problem is my boss is insistent that on top of all my many duties, he now expects a constant flow of information and updates for our Facebook page and on our Twitter profile.

I can’t keep up and I’m worried I’ll say or do something damaging to the company if I continue to juggle everything at the current rate.

– DB

Dear DB,

It's great your company has cottoned on to the benefits of social media, even if it's only because the boss just read about it in the Financial Timesand decided to jump on the Facepig's back.

There are applications, such as Buffer (bufferapp.com) for Twitter and Sendible (sendible.com) that allow you to stack up your tweets and FB messages and schedule their release.

However, this will not entirely solve your problem and beware stacking up tweets and messages that may go stale while they wait.

Companies who do well via social media do so because they are committed to it and, crucially, because they provide a forum for customers and clients to respond and feel listened to.

Your company needs a full-time social media manager. Old-school bosses have made the mistake of assuming that because social media is ostensibly free, the work that goes into managing it should be too and they get an intern to do it.

Make your boss aware of the atrocious and costly social media mistakes of some of the biggest companies in the world, including Nestle and United Airlines. This should be enough to convince her of the need to allocate resources to this issue.