Job Seekers, Do or Don’t: Should you Follow and/or Friend Future Employers?

A question from the field . . .  “Should you engage with potential employers on social platforms?”

It’s a bit complicated, but here’s my take:

• DO follow them on Twitter if they are clearly a Twitter user (as a person, not a corporate account). If they’re following many and being followed, as well as contributing to the conversation, then they are engaged and will welcome an additional follower.
• DON’T follow them on Twitter if they don’t tweet or have few or no followers. I’m not sure why they’re there and neither are they.
• DO follow them if it’s a corporate account designed to be a news stream about the company and/or its industry. That’s why it’s there.
• DO connect with them on LinkedIn if you know one another and have worked together or been connected by a business network. Chances are, if you’re to the interview stage, this is someone already in your network.
• DON’T send them a LinkedIn invitation if they’re not on LinkedIn. (Why do you want this job, again?)
• DON’T friend them on Facebook. That’s a little weird if you don’t know each other. It is, of course, fine, if you’re already friends in another way.
• DO “like” the organization’s page.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with any of these?