There are some essential “don’ts” if you want to stay out of trouble on Facebook. Don’t…

Make friends with people you don’t know

Add as a friend? Think before clicking “confirm”. It’s one thing to add an old friend and then never speak to them. It’s another to add anyone whose name you kind of vaguely sort of recognize or don’t know at all! If you accept those invites, you’ve only got yourself to blame. If you scan through your Facebook friends list, you’ll doubtless find a handful of people in there you barely know. Why are they there with access to your ‘life’?

Upload Drunken Pictures

Unless you look after your privacy settings, embarrassment and shame are almost inevitable on Facebook – from the mildly upsetting double-chin shot to much, much worse. Have a little common sense. If you go out for a big one on a Thursday night, posting humiliating, drunken photos of your friends on Friday morning is a recipe for disaster. Because if a friend then calls in sick at 9am, the last thing they want their manager to say is: “I’ve seen the pictures of you crawling in the gutter last night. I’m not amused or impressed, get into work!”

Update your status when you’re supposedly ill

If you’ve pulled a sickie or are genuinely ill, it’s probably best to stay off Facebook. How many times have we seen it? Someone calls in sick in the morning and then updates their Facebook status throughout the day, documenting a day of ice cream, chips, theme parks or bungee jumping. Get dressed and get to work you lazy so and so, or else you’ll probably be fired. And it’d be your own fault for adding your manager to be your Facebook friend!

Moan in your Facebook status

The most annoying thing that people do on Facebook is to spray their walls with vanity-filled drivel, by posting self-indulgent awfulness in their status updates. “Kathy is sorry how it ended but it had to be done. I love you and will miss you, and I hope you can apologise one day”. Really! If you’ve got something to say to someone, say it. Also don’t complain about your customers or colleagues, it’s clearly unprofessional.

Spill secrets

You can’t exactly whisper on Facebook, so secrets are best confined to corridors and corners.

And these could just be me but …..

Watch you’re grammar and spelling mistrakes
Come on, people: ‘Your’ is ‘your’. ‘You are’ is ‘you’re’. It really isn’t hard to get that little one right. And understanding the difference between there, their and they’re surely isn’t too much of a challenge?

Invite me to be a Zombie Pirate Snot Monster
Please don’t do that ever, ever again.