How do I get Facebook users to accept my friend requests?

• I love Facebook and use it pretty regularly to market my site online. However, I sometimes have difficulty getting other users to accept my Facebook friends requests. Do you have some tips on how I can do this more effectively?

Answer: It used to be that you could send out dozens or hundreds of random friend requests on Facebook daily and receive a pretty high percentage of approvals in return. The novelty of the site and the desire for new users to generate a big friends list from their account were the main reasons for this high initial success rate.

However, with the rise of valid identity theft concerns coupled with the incredible number of Facebook users that now exist (over 70,000,000 as of June, 2008) most Facebook users are more than a little hesitant to add just anyone these days to their approved friends list.

This is especially true on Facebook where all your approved friends can see your full profile and picture. The question of where to draw the line in choosing a friend to allow such access is becoming a regular point of discussion in Facebook chats around the country. So who do you let in? People you know or have met? Colleagues from work? Classmates or school friends? Where do you draw the line in choosing whom to make your "online friend?" Do you pick or choose or do you just add everybody and leave it at that?

There are certainly some do's and don't that will help you increase the likelihood that your friend requests will be approved. These methods use a combination of both active and passive networking in that you want to be involved in the community first, before you start to actively send out friend requests to those who you may want to connect with regularly as new Facebook friends.

First, make it a point to maintain both a personal and business page in Facebook. Facebook itself recommends this as a great way to build both personal contacts and professional and networking contacts and as a way to keep them separate. Most experienced Facebook users have both an all-business and an all-personal account and use them for entirely different reasons. Make sure to check out our byte from last month on