The Friendly Approach To Unfriending At Facebook

Written By: Frances Flynn Thorsen

I am a firm believer that real estate agents designing a peer-centric social media presence are making a strategic mistake in terms of business development. Feedback following another post; 10 Ways Real Estate Agents Create Deeper Engagement on Facebook, is mixed relative to this question. Agents are concerned that Unfriending will lead to a perception that they are unfriendly.

The following steps assure an easy transition from Friend to Unfriend.

Isolate the list of real estate professionals on your Facebook Friends list and select the people you want to Unfriend.

Send a note to each (create this in Notepad and copy to Facebook e-mail): “I cherish your friendship in real life and on Facebook. I am working with a new social media strategy and I am taking a new direction. I am going to make my Facebook Wall a place for family and friends. I am going to disconnect myself from other real estate professionals as part of my new plan. I look forward to engaging with you elsewhere on Facebook and in other social media platforms. Here is my LinkedIn profile [insert LinkedIn profile], let’s connect there first!”

Go to the other agent’s page, bottom left, click “Remove from Friends.”

Engage with other agents at Realtown, ActiveRain, and other peer-to-peer platforms where consumer engagement is not the primary focus.

Tagged as: Facebook, Frances Flynn Thorsen, unfriend