My Facebook Approach

I just happened to realize that this morning, I passed the 1,000 friend mark on Facebook. I love Facebook. I see it's immense strengths. I also see it's luring dangers. I pay attention to both. Here are a few keys and secrets to "my Facebook approach":

1. I have one rule about who I am friends with. Here it is: I have to know them! They may be a friend or an acquaintance or someone I met one time. But, whether it is 1,000 or 5,000, I will be able to tell you who each one of them are. They know me and I know them. That simple. I aint being "friends" online with people I do not know. That's just me.
   
2. There is no way in the world that I can keep updated on 1,000+ friends. Not happening. So, I made 2 lists. "CCF" and "Favorites". Then, I try to read the status updates of the people on those 2 lists to see what they are up to (about 150 people). I cannot even begin to tell you how much I appreciate the window into church people, family and friends throughout the week. But there are about 850 of my "friends" that I just do not have the time to read.
   
3. I get this alot...Noah, you update all the time! How do you have the time for that? 2 words: I TWITTER! I never ever update my Facebook status from within Facebook. I simply twitter. From the bathroom, the car, the hallway, wherever and whenever I have a thought I want to share, I take my phone off my hip and send a text (to twitter). (Now using Tweetdeck for the iPhone.) As soon as I hit send on my Tweet that took 10 seconds to write, it automatically populates on my blog, the Twitter site, the cell phones that get my updates through SMS and Facebook! I do none of that.
   
4. One more key to my Facebook approach: I use it as a tool to connect, relate and network with people through sharing my updates and receiving theirs (with many opportunities for ministry arising all the time). That's it! No game playing, no farms (no offense to my friends who are avid farmers), no invites, no events, no birthdays, no quizzes, no fan clubs, no poking...you get my point. That may work for you, but not me. No time to fit that in.

So, maybe you found this helpful. If you have any questions or comments about any of this, leave a comment! I enjoy interacting on these things.