Courtesy of beaupre.com

People have been forced to adopt a type of online schizophrenia – two personalities sharing the same cyberspace. But how important is it really to keep your ‘real’ personality and your ‘business’ personality separate?

Remember The Risks Involved

When you decide to be frank about everyone and everything on your personal profiles, this can leak over to your business presence. The only way you can try to curb this content soup-mix is to keep your accounts separate.

If you can, use different networks, groups – heck use different sites if you can. A word to the wise though – no one can hide from Google. Everything you say under your personal name can and will be used against you in business. To prevent this, use nicknames to protect your persona.

Try To Keep Your Moral Compasses Integrated

Your personal and business personas should share a lot of things in common – like your core likes and dislikes, or your code of ethics. There is no point pretending to be a trustworthy business person, when you are boasting about taking people for a ride on your personal pages.

People will find out. That’s why it’s always a good idea to keep your basic beliefs the same. That way, if clients read your personal content, they will see that you are still the same, decent person you claim to be in business.

Structure and Views Matter on All Pages

If you make a point of writing clearly and error free on your business profile, then you should do the same on your personal pages. This will help reaffirm that you are the same person working within these different accounts.

Though your motives are different, splashing crude slang across your personal pages is not going to endear you to any future clients. Also, try to stay away from the touchy topics online.

Religion and politics can cause more fights that any other topics on the internet. Avoid them in business, and if you can, avoid them on your personal profiles as well. Try to reach an even ground with your persona’s!

Your Online Persona Includes Both Business and Personal Use

When people search for your business, or search your name, they get both of your online personas. If you’re a business person, both of these personas need to be managed in order to present the right image to your client and to the world.

If your personal persona has a terrible reputation, you better believe that no one will want to do business with you once they find out. Everything online is interlinked.

You have to be very careful what you say online, and how you present yourself on all fronts. Keep your personal life and business life separate, just remember that in reality – they aren’t separate at all. One leads back to the other and you’re accountable!

Is your business persona the same as your personal persona? Do you think this is the right thing to do? Tell us please!

Courtesy of careerviewmirror.wordpress.com

And, because many of us are blissfully unaware of the implications of this – it hasn’t bothered us much until now. Then – horror stories of people being fired because they said something on Twitter about their boss.

Businesses ruined because employees ran rampant in a public Facebook group – what’s happening? Well, thanks to search engines and social networks nothing is private anymore. Not if your name is attached to it.

Indexing What You Say in Real Time

Email is a fairly private form of social media, and one we have become accustomed to over the years. Unfortunately, it has managed to ruin our ideas on what privacy should be on social media sites. Don’t think for one second that what you say on MySpace, FourSquare or Twitter is private.

Each word you create and publish is carefully indexed by these sites and stored under your name (or alias). Real time searches and search engines will produce your latest comments on Facebook or any other network they like just as soon as someone types in your name or nickname. Every detail can be traced back to you. Anyone can access this information, even if they aren’t your follower or friend.

Private Is Not So Private On Social Media

If you think your comments or posts are safe in private groups, think again. Social media thrives on information. If you publish a particularly entertaining rant, in a ‘private’ group, it may end up on a client rant site – via someone else who has republished what you’ve said.

Next thing you know, there’s your name, or your business name, with a very inappropriate comment shining out for all the world to see. A lot of social media is recycled, or republished – especially the things you shouldn’t say because they are the most interesting to read. There are some things you should never utter online – ever.

Don’t Freak Out, Remember it’s All about Business

Remember when your parents used to say “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all?” Well, like always – that rule should be followed. Think of social media as a direct line to your clients, bosses, competitors and employees. Assume that they can and do see everything you publish online.

That way, you’ll never stumble into a bad situation by mistake. The internet is no longer a platform for little groups of people. It’s everyone’s arena now. As long as you stay honest, pleasant and aware – you’ll be just fine. Don’t be afraid of your opinions, just remember that posting them on Twitter is the same as sending a private email to the people you are talking about! Most of all learn with every experience to improve the way you communicate online.

Finally, stay positive. No one in business wants to read about how sad or angry you are anyway, it never helps your image. Good luck!

Have you ever landed up in hot water over a comment you’ve posted? Tell us about it!

Courtesy of socialmediasocialmarketing.com

It’s been that way since the Internet was created. But there are other things you can do in your endless fight against spam that can make a difference. Just deleting and moving on are not your only options anymore!

Facebook Spam

What do you do when your business page has been attacked by spam? Most people simply delete the posts and hope for the best. Instead, there are a number of steps that you can take to make it difficult for that spammer to come back and repost on your page. First of all, under every Facebook post you have a ‘flag’ option.

Flag the spammer, and report them to Facebook. You’ll get the option to then ban the person from your page, and remove all content that they have posted there – forever. If the problem is recurring you can change your permissions setting, and prevent your fans from positing on your wall at all. Not ideal, but your only last resort.

Blog Spam

Blog spam these days can be difficult to catch, because it often comes disguised as complimentary comments. There are a number of ways however, to limit the average spam message. You could use a ‘Captcha’ form that checks if the person adding the message is human and not an automated spam program.

It’s not anywhere close to foolproof, as most spammers are people and manually paste in spam messages that contain a link they want you or your community to click on. Don’t click on that link – ever! Often it could lead to an attack on your PC, or more spam coming your way in a hurry. Make sure that the people who comment are saying something valuable, or that they appear to genuinely like your blog.

Twitter Spam

There is nothing more frustrating than being followed by a Twitter spammer. They often appear normal, and you’d never know on the surface that they are in fact huge spammers. There isn’t much of a spam system in place on Twitter right now, because most businesses use it to sell products or promote their websites and blogs.

It can all seem like spam if you look hard enough. Until they come up with a solution, you can always use their report button – this won’t eliminate the spammer from the world, but it will remove them from yours. If the spam is simply too much for you, then you can add “Stop Tweet” an app that tries to identify who the spammers are on your page. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great option to have anyway.

You see – there are better ways to deal with spammers. The hard part is identifying who the spammers are, because it’s not always easy. Sometimes it really is someone’s father that works from home, and is trying to make a little extra money. People make mistakes! In the meantime, use some of these tips to help rid the world of the spammers that intentionally ruin your pages.

What does spam look like? List the most common spam messages you know about!

Courtesy of socialmediasocialmarketing.com

It’s been that way since the Internet was created. But there are other things you can do in your endless fight against spam that can make a difference. Just deleting and moving on are not your only options anymore!

Facebook Spam

What do you do when your business page has been attacked by spam? Most people simply delete the posts and hope for the best. Instead, there are a number of steps that you can take to make it difficult for that spammer to come back and repost on your page. First of all, under every Facebook post you have a ‘flag’ option.

Flag the spammer, and report them to Facebook. You’ll get the option to then ban the person from your page, and remove all content that they have posted there – forever. If the problem is recurring you can change your permissions setting, and prevent your fans from positing on your wall at all. Not ideal, but your only last resort.

Blog Spam

Blog spam these days can be difficult to catch, because it often comes disguised as complimentary comments. There are a number of ways however, to limit the average spam message. You could use a ‘Captcha’ form that checks if the person adding the message is human and not an automated spam program.

It’s not anywhere close to foolproof, as most spammers are people and manually paste in spam messages that contain a link they want you or your community to click on. Don’t click on that link – ever! Often it could lead to an attack on your PC, or more spam coming your way in a hurry. Make sure that the people who comment are saying something valuable, or that they appear to genuinely like your blog.

Twitter Spam

There is nothing more frustrating than being followed by a Twitter spammer. They often appear normal, and you’d never know on the surface that they are in fact huge spammers. There isn’t much of a spam system in place on Twitter right now, because most businesses use it to sell products or promote their websites and blogs.

It can all seem like spam if you look hard enough. Until they come up with a solution, you can always use their report button – this won’t eliminate the spammer from the world, but it will remove them from yours. If the spam is simply too much for you, then you can add “Stop Tweet” an app that tries to identify who the spammers are on your page. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great option to have anyway.

You see – there are better ways to deal with spammers. The hard part is identifying who the spammers are, because it’s not always easy. Sometimes it really is someone’s father that works from home, and is trying to make a little extra money. People make mistakes! In the meantime, use some of these tips to help rid the world of the spammers that intentionally ruin your pages.

What does spam look like? List the most common spam messages you know about!

Courtesy of wynnsolutions.com

By doing this, and by stimulating positive feedback, your likeability as a business increases. This means that you begin to have a presence in social media, and your reputation evolves as a result of that.

But whether it evolves into something positive, or into something negative – comes down to a few fundamental features in the end. To truly create a likable presence on your social media pages, you need to concentrate on a few of these key points.

A Recognizable Brand Means Brand Consistency

For people to quickly understand that your social media pages are affiliated with your business page or blog – they need to all share a common brand identity.

This doesn’t mean that they all have to be the same, it just means that when you get a designer to mock up your Facebook, Twitter or Youtube pages, people should be able to recognize that your brands are one in the same. And yes, you should get a designer to design each of your pages as part of your social media identity.

Whatever You Do, Do It Properly and Completely

There’s nothing more irritating than arriving on a Facebook business page, and it’s only half complete. Sometimes this means that you’ve decided to list your business with 8 million social media sites (a common mistake) or, even worse – you’ve started and just haven’t found the time to finish your profile.

Social media makes your business highly visible on the internet, which means that every rushed profile, quick thoughtless post or funny (though wildly inappropriate) image is viewed by potential customers. Oops! Every single little thing you add to your business social media pages makes an impression. Make sure it’s always a positive one!

Use Appropriate Images of Yourself

People that begin to use social media for business, sometimes don’t realize that their peers in business will see the photos that they post of themselves. Don’t grab any old holiday pic of yourself and slap it down as your Twitter image. Think of the image you would like to project for yourself and for your business.

An accountant for example, would not get more work from an image of himself tipsy and sitting at a pub with his friends. Choose a professional image of yourself, and try to keep it the same throughout all of your pages so that people can identify you.

When you begin the social media journey – it’s up to you to ensure that each action has a purpose, and that purpose is to expand your community and make money. If it doesn’t contribute to either of these goals, then it doesn’t belong on your social media pages. Keep it professional, light-hearted and most of all – clean. Let your unique social media personality develop, as long as it’s in line with your business goals!

What three key points did you work around when creating your unique social media image? Trustworthy, kind, kick-ass? Give us your ideal traits below!

Courtesy of wynnsolutions.com

By doing this, and by stimulating positive feedback, your likeability as a business increases. This means that you begin to have a presence in social media, and your reputation evolves as a result of that.

But whether it evolves into something positive, or into something negative – comes down to a few fundamental features in the end. To truly create a likable presence on your social media pages, you need to concentrate on a few of these key points.

A Recognizable Brand Means Brand Consistency

For people to quickly understand that your social media pages are affiliated with your business page or blog – they need to all share a common brand identity.

This doesn’t mean that they all have to be the same, it just means that when you get a designer to mock up your Facebook, Twitter or Youtube pages, people should be able to recognize that your brands are one in the same. And yes, you should get a designer to design each of your pages as part of your social media identity.

Whatever You Do, Do It Properly and Completely

There’s nothing more irritating than arriving on a Facebook business page, and it’s only half complete. Sometimes this means that you’ve decided to list your business with 8 million social media sites (a common mistake) or, even worse – you’ve started and just haven’t found the time to finish your profile.

Social media makes your business highly visible on the internet, which means that every rushed profile, quick thoughtless post or funny (though wildly inappropriate) image is viewed by potential customers. Oops! Every single little thing you add to your business social media pages makes an impression. Make sure it’s always a positive one!

Use Appropriate Images of Yourself

People that begin to use social media for business, sometimes don’t realize that their peers in business will see the photos that they post of themselves. Don’t grab any old holiday pic of yourself and slap it down as your Twitter image. Think of the image you would like to project for yourself and for your business.

An accountant for example, would not get more work from an image of himself tipsy and sitting at a pub with his friends. Choose a professional image of yourself, and try to keep it the same throughout all of your pages so that people can identify you.

When you begin the social media journey – it’s up to you to ensure that each action has a purpose, and that purpose is to expand your community and make money. If it doesn’t contribute to either of these goals, then it doesn’t belong on your social media pages. Keep it professional, light-hearted and most of all – clean. Let your unique social media personality develop, as long as it’s in line with your business goals!

What three key points did you work around when creating your unique social media image? Trustworthy, kind, kick-ass? Give us your ideal traits below!

Courtesy of actasifblog.com

It’s amazing though, how some social media managers manage to drag their businesses name through the mud when this happens. That positive opportunity quickly becomes bad publicity, and all because they handled the situation incorrectly. So how do you know that what you’re doing is having a positive effect on your businesses reputation? Let’s take a look at some best practices that you can use as a checklist.

Address Concerns in Easy To Consume Detail

When someone brings to light an issue with your business, you need to address it immediately to curb any negative press that has begun circulating. Not only should you explain your side in detail, but you should do it in a short, concise manner – that drips with professionalism and poise. If someone rants about the service they received from your business, detail your experience with the client in a non-inflammatory manner.

Remain Professional and Don’t Stoop To Their Level

This is social media, which means people sometimes think they have the right to say whatever the heck they want about your business – lies or not. They often don’t consider the real damage that could result from it.

If someone decides to go out of their way to ‘get back at your business’ by publishing reviews, posts and terrible comments about you everywhere they can – find each source, address it, and resolve the situation. That way other readers will see that you’re on top of the bad things being said about you – always a good sign that the business in question cares.

Fend off Personal Attacks with Polite Logic

Because social media invites personal conversion, it also invites personal attack – which, let’s be honest, is a lot harder to swallow.

When people are plastering nasty things about you on the internet, it’s very easy to lose your cool and say nasty things back. But this doesn’t solve a thing. If you deal with it in a professional manner, and logically explain your position – you’ll make the ‘troll client’ look like a spiteful person.

Thank People for Constructive Criticism

Not all negative feedback is that negative, and often you’ll find yourself confronted with constructive criticism. Misinterpreted, this can lead to all out battles on Twitter, Facebook or on your blog. When someone is offering advice based on their experience of your products or services, accept it with a pinch of salt. And thank them for it.

Don’t Respond At All to Threats or Abusive Language

Last but not least is the negative feedback that threatens to dismantle all of your hard work over the last few years. Someone, for no real reason, leaves outrageous comments about your business on your social media pages.

There is swearing, threats and things are blown out of proportion so badly, you feel like deleting your profile. In this instance it’s sometimes best to ignore it. You might even delete it, if you can. Delete and ignore. That’s how to deal with vicious, unfounded feedback.

Have you ever received a particularly bad comment about your business?
What did you do about it? Let us know!

Courtesy of actasifblog.com

It’s amazing though, how some social media managers manage to drag their businesses name through the mud when this happens. That positive opportunity quickly becomes bad publicity, and all because they handled the situation incorrectly. So how do you know that what you’re doing is having a positive effect on your businesses reputation? Let’s take a look at some best practices that you can use as a checklist.

Address Concerns in Easy To Consume Detail

When someone brings to light an issue with your business, you need to address it immediately to curb any negative press that has begun circulating. Not only should you explain your side in detail, but you should do it in a short, concise manner – that drips with professionalism and poise. If someone rants about the service they received from your business, detail your experience with the client in a non-inflammatory manner.

Remain Professional and Don’t Stoop To Their Level

This is social media, which means people sometimes think they have the right to say whatever the heck they want about your business – lies or not. They often don’t consider the real damage that could result from it.

If someone decides to go out of their way to ‘get back at your business’ by publishing reviews, posts and terrible comments about you everywhere they can – find each source, address it, and resolve the situation. That way other readers will see that you’re on top of the bad things being said about you – always a good sign that the business in question cares.

Fend off Personal Attacks with Polite Logic

Because social media invites personal conversion, it also invites personal attack – which, let’s be honest, is a lot harder to swallow.

When people are plastering nasty things about you on the internet, it’s very easy to lose your cool and say nasty things back. But this doesn’t solve a thing. If you deal with it in a professional manner, and logically explain your position – you’ll make the ‘troll client’ look like a spiteful person.

Thank People for Constructive Criticism

Not all negative feedback is that negative, and often you’ll find yourself confronted with constructive criticism. Misinterpreted, this can lead to all out battles on Twitter, Facebook or on your blog. When someone is offering advice based on their experience of your products or services, accept it with a pinch of salt. And thank them for it.

Don’t Respond At All to Threats or Abusive Language

Last but not least is the negative feedback that threatens to dismantle all of your hard work over the last few years. Someone, for no real reason, leaves outrageous comments about your business on your social media pages.

There is swearing, threats and things are blown out of proportion so badly, you feel like deleting your profile. In this instance it’s sometimes best to ignore it. You might even delete it, if you can. Delete and ignore. That’s how to deal with vicious, unfounded feedback.

Have you ever received a particularly bad comment about your business?
What did you do about it? Let us know!

Courtesy of justmeans.com

Still, that tells you almost nothing about the content you need to create. What makes content good, and what makes bad content? Let’s examine a few key elements.

Good content is usually valuable and worth reading. It teaches you something, or amuses you in some small way. It’s extremely well written, with correct spelling, grammar and syntax. Everything that you say helps you reach your end goal – to make money, build a community or foster likeability.

Bad content like random quotes, statements, useless updates about your dinner, rants about nothing and repetitive marketing is considered highly damaging to a social media strategy. You should be living and breathing good content. Think about adding these questions into your content creation strategy.

What Relevant News and Announcements Can I Publish?

Was your restaurant just voted the best seafood restaurant in Miami? That’s newsworthy, publishable content. Have you just moved offices to make space for 8 more web designers? That’s completely relevant. Always keep in mind that your followers or community want to know what your business is up to. That means providing them with accurate, engaging and useful news.

Do I Place Organic Keywords in Interesting Nuggets of Knowledge?

People love to learn things from authority sites, which is what you are trying to become. How close do you think you’re going to get if your Twitter stream continually posts old quotes or ‘funny one-liners’ instead of golden nuggets of insider information? All social media content needs to be keyword rich so that it can be easily searched. Create informative bits of information for your community and post it on your social media pages. The rarer the info – the more people will treasure it.

Do My Personal Views Make For Great Content?

If you’re extremely knowledgeable about things in your industry, then your personal views will be highly regarded on the internet. Not only will you be able to relate to other industry professionals better, but you’ll actively demonstrate your expertise to your community. Create posts that are infused with your own personal experiences, and have an opinion about everything in your industry!

Am I Creating Controversial Statements or Linkbait Posts?

Make a plan to create and publish content that will stimulate discussion, opposition or hype, and will prompt other sites to link to it. These linkbait posts are often left out of content strategies, which is not ideal. You want people to get involved – so do what you can to ‘force’ their opinions out of them. We’re talking edgy, controversial, hot topics that you should be posting all the time.

As you build up the amount of content on each of your social media platforms, you’ll be able to track which content gets the most attention. Take note of this, and use it to your advantage to always create and publish the best social media content possible!

Is your social media content good?
How did you make it that way? Tell us!

Courtesy of nexell.net

It’s easy to get distracted by your growing community of followers. It’s easy to become obsessed with the bottom line. But human relationships made on social media platforms can last, and transform into richly rewarding lines of communication.

How do you manage your personal and your professional relationships on social media? Is the one the same as the other? Probably not. You have your private Facebook page that you use for personal reasons, and you have your business Facebook page that you use for sales, community interaction, promotions and market research.

People on your personal pages follow you because they know you, and people on your business pages follow you because they benefit in some way from it.

Yet if you had to have a small sale now, the people from your personal pages would be the people buying. Can you guess why? Those are REAL relationships. A comment here, and a free gift there – only gets you so far in the eyes of the ever elusive community of nameless faces.

Wake Up And Smell The Trends

It’s 2011. Social media is morphing into something more than just ‘businesses’ and ‘communities.’ The businesses that are making the most money off social media are the ones that spend the most time nurturing genuine relationships. Start thinking of it as a full time job.

If you’re not on now, your not on to the world – so they’ll do something else. The only way to manage your professional relationships this year is to work at them – like you do with your real friends.

The Social Media Call Centre Theory

Imagine you had a person communicating on social media platforms 24/7, for your business. Can you imagine the possibilities? Someone live, whenever a direct question is posed. Someone there whenever a complaint filters through. That’s how you build a real relationship with your community. Friends expect you to always be there for them!

They expect to be contacted, filled in about your life and asked to participate in it. If we apply this set of rules to our management goals for our social media strategies – good things will happen.

Responsive community members. More people that trust you. People who care what’s happening in your business, and what promotions you are having. Online friends. We are approaching the Social Media Call Centre era, and we’re not prepared.

So, how do you manage your personal and professional relationships on social media sites? I handle them both the same way so that I can build real, rewarding relationships with people. That’s the only answer to give if you want to make money this year!

Tell us how you manage your personal and professional relationships on social media. Do you treat them equally, or does your business end seem a bit too clinical…?