Professionalism and Facebook

In our office, we consider ourselves members of one large family. We have a broad range of ages, educational backgrounds, professional goals, geographical origins, heights, fashion styles, you name it. Like any group, there are pockets within the family that form friendships that go beyond the office. This is healthy and I'm thankful it happens. However, where is the line drawn between managers and non-managers? When should a manager be Facebook friends with employees, if ever?

I recently encountered a slightly awkward situation when one of my former employees was still connected to me on Facebook. I was not sure whether to "unfriend" them or not. I didn't feel like we had a friendship that would extend outside of the office, which is no fault of this person's or my own, we just didn't have that kind of connection. So, as a former manager, what do I do? I ended up "unfriending" them along with a dozen or so other former colleagues. If this had been several months ago when I had about 1,500 friends I likely would have kept them on my list. However, after multiple de-facebooking processes I couldn't justify keeping them. They have my work email address which is more than my Facebook friends have. I will be reachable for them in the future but they don't need to see what I had for lunch or what my hair looks like.

Another cool feature on Facebook is to group contacts together and set privacy settings based on the grouping. This helps give not-so-real friends limited access to your personal life.

So in our newest chapter of technology in the marketplace, what is appropriate for a manager in terms of their workers? What do you think? Is it a case by case basis or is there a one ring to rule them all philosophy?