When you look at your Facebook friends, or your LinkedIn network, or your Twitter follower list, do you see only people you know? Or, like me, do you have a mix of people you know well, some you don’t know that well (yet), and maybe even a few people who reached out to you, and you’ve never met or talked with them?
As easy as it ease to connect on the social networks (usually just a click and a quick message of Hello!), more and more people are wondering how open they should be with their social network acceptances. Some people are locking down, and only accepting people online that they know in real life. Others are accepting everyone who meets a certain standard of engagement or professionalism. And still others are accepting everyone who asks.
With the site-wide roll out of new privacy settings on Facebook, the questions of how open to be on your social networks is becoming more and more relevant.
While I certainly don’t have all the answers, let me give you a few areas to consider.
How open you should be on your social networks is based on what you’re using your social networks for.
For example, if you are using your Facebook account primarily to stay in touch with friends, family, and neighbors, you can set the most stringent privacy settings- the ones where only friends can see your details. This is also a smart move, perhaps, if you share a lot of details about your life, and want to retain some amount of control over how this information is distributed. Of course, remember that anything that goes online is never really private, or undiscoverable, so keep that in mind when you share.
If you are using Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn to build your professional network, I would suggest being a little more open about who you accept. My rule of thumb, generally, is to accept most people who approach me, after I’ve checked out their profiles, and recent updates, and satisfied myself that I’m comfortable with being associated with them. I call this approach the “giving people the benefit of the doubt” stance- I will connect on the social networks unless or until you give me a reason not to do so.
The third way to approach your social networks is to accept everyone indiscriminately- just to boost your follower ratio, or just because you’re lazy. I definitely do not recommend this, for several reasons. First, it can damage your reputation or standing. Let’s say, for example, that you accept a bunch of people who are porn spammers on Twitter- wouldn’t that negatively impact your brand? (Of course, right, unless you’re a porn spammer yourself, in which case you’re probably not reading this anyway…). The second reason not to accept just everyone is because now that the content of Twitter and Facebook updates are now searchable, you don’t want any ill considered tweets or updates to show up in your stream or on your Wall and be associated with you. Not saying this is exactly how it will work, but better safe than sorry, especially with new technology, right?
If you do any directed promotion online, such as a teleseminar or webinar, be sure you are careful about how you manage your social network additions in the days and weeks after. I have had people who were in my classes or trainings approach me to connect, and you want to encourage this as much as possible in order to build your positioning online. If I were too stringent and denied everyone who wanted to connect with me that I didn’t yet know, I would have pissed some people off, and kind of cut off new potential business relationships before they really began. This is why, for business, I recommend the “give people the benefit of the doubt” approach as a general rule.
Part of the value of social networks is that you can engage with and connect with more people than you might otherwise be able to reach. The value of this is diminished if you are too stringent in your networking, or, conversely, too open with it.
Like the fairy tale of Goldilocks, the goal with social networking is to not be too stringent, nor too open, but instead, just right.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
Tag: social media strategy
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Twables.com
One of the hallmarks of good social networking strategy is to overlap your social networks. This means that when you connect with someone through one social network, you want to try and connect with them also on the other social networks.
There are several reasons this is important. First, it enables you to leverage multiple platforms at once, so if your account on one platform (or the platform itself) goes down, you haven’t lost touch with your network. The second reason you want to overlap your social networks is psychological. The more familiar you are to people, the more they will like you. Seeing your name and profile again and again on multiple networks will automatically make you more familiar to those in your network. You can assist this process by offering good insight and relevant information.
The great thing about technology is that there are more and more services which can aid you in overlapping your social networks. If you use Facebook connect on Plaxo, for instance, your Plaxo network grows when you connect with someone on Facebook, if both you and the other person have this feature enabled.
A similar type of interconnectivity is promised by Twables.com, which is a service that connects your Facebook friends with your Twitter friends. You can access the service by going to http://www.twables.com/fb140
I didn’t find it extremely straightforward to set up, this probably could be slightly improved. However, once it was set up, I started getting @ messages on Twitter telling me which of my Facebook friends were on Twitter. I then have to login manually to my Twables account to accept or confirm the connection.
I think the idea of this service is very good, and it will be one to watch in the coming months. More and more, we will be seeing technology to help us connect in as many networks as possible, which will help us better navigate the flow of new social media connections and relationships.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
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Top 5 Twitter Pet Peeves
I was speaking with a consulting client yesterday about using the social networks. This client is somewhat new(er) to social media, and is getting a fast-tracked education. 🙂
We got on to the subject of Twitter, and started talking about Twitter do’s and don’ts. While I know what my personal pet peeves are, I was curious as to what other tweeters thought. So, in a highly unscientific survey, I asked.
Here are the responses I got:
1) Lack of engagement
Several people cited this as a major pet peeve, where people follow them without trying to connect with them or find out more about them. This came up most often. It does seem that people really do want to use the social networks to connect.
2) Automated messages after following
This was the second most cited pet peeve. People feel like these messages are clutter and kind of clog up the works. From my perspective, if I follow you, you don’t need to welcome me. Just give me some good information (i.e. be a good tweeter) and I’m happy. Likewise, I am certainly thumbs down on all the direct messages about making money with Twitter, joining your Mafia family, and the like.
3) Spam and porn
This was the third most commonly cited Twitter pet peeve. People, in general, say they are blocking and reporting people who spam or send out pornographic links or tweets. There are some things which should be left to the imagination.
4) Too much tweet repetition
This pet peeve relates to people repeating their tweets. There are various services which let you set up recurring tweets, but the latest news is that Twitter is cracking down on accounts which make notable use of repeated tweets. This means that you can’t really “set and forget” your Twitter account without running a higher risk of suspension. I imagine that occasional repetition is fine, but just keep in mind that people want new information. Every tweet you send out has the potential to build your brand, so be original.
5) Too many hashtags or @ names
This means that people don’t want to read tweets that have too many labels or tags. They also don’t want to read ones which seem blanketed with user names. I, too, notice that I tend to glaze over when I read a tweet that references multiple users. Maybe the balance is to use names, but maybe 3 or less per tweet.
If you want to get attention, gain followers, and be more effective with using Twitter, keep these pet peeves in mind- and don’t do them.
Special thanks to my Twitter connections who contributed to this post:
@paganmomblog, @adamsherk, @Agotthelf
@jodhikavespa, @driveindustries, @mollyzmommie
@SchereLLC, @GAStroz, @AdaMarcom
(If you’re looking to connect on Twitter with people who add value and like to engage, follow them!)
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
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Too Shy For Social Media?
When you think about getting involved with social media, do you feel stressed out? Negative? Avoidant? Don’t worry, that’s normal.
It can be daunting to think about putting yourself “out there” in terms of engaging in social media. Aside from the real privacy and safety concerns about being so transparent online, it is also easy to see that, in some facets, social media is like a popularity contest- and one in which everyone knows where you’re ranking.
For many of us, it reminds us of high school- where we really wanted to be popular, cool, and hip- but just didn’t know how. And it’s not helped, at all, by the fact that some of our peers and colleagues feel so at ease swimming in the social media pool.
Underneath the shyness may be a feeling of discomfort- both of learning the new paradigm and then investing in it. We may use excuses of “social media is just a fad” or “serious businesses don’t use social media”, but, unfortunately, we’d be wrong on both counts.
Research suggests that the largest companies will be investing heavily in social media over the next few years. If you don’t dive in pretty soon, you might miss the party all together.
So what is a social media wallflower to do? Here are some tips to get started gently and easily with social media:
Determine how much you are comfortable sharing within the online space. Some people will be fine talking about their spouse, their work, and their pets- but not their children. Some people will feel more comfortable sharing about just their work and personal interests, sans family information or photos. There is not “right” or “wrong” way to participate, so you should always do what makes you the most comfortable. Realize, too, that certain social sites may require more “up to the minute” updates (think of Twitter, for example), which may not be quite your style. Create some guidelines for what you’d be comfortable sharing with complete strangers who may, eventually, become part of your professional network.
Focus first on a professional social network. One of the easiest, and most familiar, ways to step into social media is by using professional social networking sites, such as LinkedIn. This site allows you to contribute professional data, and to connect with others around your professional network. Given that this site is quite similar to creating an electronic resume or CV, even the shyest person should be able to complete the profile process quite successfully. There is more to using LinkedIn, of course, but getting your profile up is the first step.
Read the instructions. Be sure you understand what kind of data each site collects, and how it uses or shares your information. On some sites, data you provide will be automatically shared (public/viewable) with other users. So clarify how the site uses data and set your privacy settings appropriately.
Start small. Like any new skill you want to acquire, it is best to start small. Select one or two sites to start with, and gradually add on others as you move forward.
And who knows? One day you may find yourself participating, sharing, networking- and loving every minute of it.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog