What are your social media rules?
What do you do online to manage your reputation?
Your digital footprint follows you everywhere. I regularly Google people, look them up on Twitter, and always see if I can find someone on LinkedIn before I meet them, so people must be doing the same to me. Reputation is extremely important, particularly when you’re in the business of giving advice, as we are here at Clear Thought.
Here are a few rules that I follow in my online networking:
#1 Facebook is for friends. I only hook up with people on Facebook who meet one or more of the following criteria, I would be comfortable for them to see me drunk and emotional or we’re related. And, even then I restrict who sees which photos, etc.
#2 LinkedIn is my professional network. Every single person on my LinkedIn I have either worked with or met in a professional capacity. There’s a real link, and I may well do, or probably have done, real paying work with them.
#3 Twitter, for me, is the equivalent of a professional networking event. Anyone can follow, hey I don’t know exactly who visits my website everyday, if they’re interested, that’s fine. But, for me it is a conversation with like-minded business people. I only say on Twitter the kinds of things I would say at a professional event… which occasionally includes chatting about what I’m up to at the weekend or my thoughts on Strictly, but broadly speaking it is about marketing, and specifically ways to make marketing pay.
These are the three social networking sites I use most often… the same principles apply to similar other sites, I’m sure you get the point.
What are your social media rules?
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
You might also be interested in:
- Blog: B2B Social Media; Be There, Be Relevant, Be Proven »
- Webcast: Bryony’s 30 minute webcast on generating online word of mouth on SlideShare »
- Case study: an integrated campaign including social media »
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this at the fraction of the cost of recruiting into a full-time position by delivering one-off strategic projects, hands-on training, marketing support, and out-sourced marketing departments. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Published on 20 November 2009
Jake Johnson - 20/11/2009 13:21pm
I only really use the above social networks and agree with the way you use them. Facebook is about keeping in touch with friends and family, LinkedIn is more of an online CV and Twitter is about discovering new content/people. With all three of them, I always consider what I post before doing so as a growing number of people who do business with you/want to hire you will look at your "online personality" before meeting you.
louise david - 25/11/2009 11:27am
I used to struggle with the idea of a 'professional persona' preferring to present my authentic self at work, at home and in the street. These days I settle for 'me lite' for any public communciation channel either online, or 'professionaly' in person too. I just turn the volume down on the wisecracking, my world view and my personal life. With every conversation you give and recieve permissions to engage and exchange - so if I stay connected and tuned in I don't usually put my foot in it. We talk a lot about conversations - if I was inclined, I'd be a little depressed that we're repackaging the art of conversation as the latest 'must have skill'. Yoiks! For me conversating never got old. In the middle of a very noisy party - it's still a delight to stumble across an engaging conversation - and you can always step out into the garden to listen more deeply. My rules then are: Always say hello, be genuinely interested and engaged, listen deeply and respond honestly and remember, while you'll drive yourself crazy trying to please all of the people all of the time - it only takes a little thought to avoid offending them.
Richard Churchill - 26/11/2009 13:11pm
Nice summary Bryony, I use a very similar parsing of my social media life. Overall my aim is to to what I do in real life which is to have a casual chat with friends, a professional conversation with clients & use a variety of tools for messaging (I happen to see twitter as a messaging tool for me, but a source to look at other people...).