The pros and cons of juggling Facebook accounts
Despite the network’s prohibition on multiple accounts, some do toggle their personal and professional profiles. But is that the best way to go?
Facebook’s terms of service make it quite clear: “You will not create more than one personal profile.”
And yet, managing separate Facebook accounts—one for personal friends and another for professional colleagues—is how plenty of communicators and other professionals have sought to keep up the barrier between those online personae.
Until recently, real estate journalist Amanda Marsh was keeping up with two accounts. She then dumped her business account, because it had become too much to handle, with the constant influx of e-mails and two ever-growing news feeds. She’s still trying to figure out how to keep things separate.
“If you tell a sort of inappropriate joke to a family member, [co-workers] will be able to see it,” she says. “There’s no way to block them from seeing that unless you’re diligent about going back and X-ing out your recent activity on your page, but that takes a long time.”
Is juggling accounts to avoid a potential faux pas worth the risk of losing what you’ve built on Facebook and the time you’ve put into building it? Opinions vary.
The spirit of the law
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