Archive for the ‘facebook’ Category

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So, you tell me:  Can a person have their Facebook account disabled for promoting and marketing their brands, products and services?

SCENARIO 1.

Just the other day, as the anchor for Social Media Television, I had the distinct pleasure interviewing a guest who described what he did to have his Facebook account disabled (unknowingly).  He’d created a business page, but because of SEC rules, and his profession, he had to take it down.  So, he began engaging his community and “promoting” his products and services on his personal profile.  To his horror, one day, Facebook sent him a nice little note that said:  ”Your account has been disabled”!

SCENARIO 2.

Today, I received an exciting note, that a community member had reached 5,000 “friends” on his personal profile and Facebook said, in other words, “time to get a Fan Page” (i.e. Business Page).  He was shocked at the limitation.   Here’s my reply, and I’m curious what you would add to this:

Dear X,

First, Congratulations on reaching this milestone with the equity of your brand!

Can I respond / weigh in?  Just a few thoughts, which I know you “already know” …

You make sense, but think about it:

If your personal profile has nothing to do with your business or profession, then a Business Page (i.e. Fan Page) is the most appropriate.

What I’ve observed is that we start building a personal brand/and or our services or products, and sometimes, we’re promoting them on the personal profile (and thus a violation of the terms of service) and that really isn’t the purpose of FB personal profile.  It’s intended to be, well, personal.

You can determine what you’re promoting by looking at your profile picture.  If it’s a logo, or image and NOT your personal picture, then, you may be tight-walking the “promotion” violation, and risk having your account disabled by Facebook.

If you aren’t doing anything to build your business or brand, and you reach 5,000 “friends”, then I say, you really need to have a “celebrity” page on the the Business side (you know you have a choice when you create your page to be a local business, product/service,  “celebrity”, or public figure, etc.).

At any rate, the content that you publish on your Fan Page will push through to your wall, so your entire community will have visibility.

Just my two cents, unsolicited, but given out of sincerity.

Have a great evening and congratulations again on your “stardom” success!!

Tiffany Odutoye, Social Brand Equity Coach

SCENARIO 3.

My client was sharing their progress to date and had great engagement on their business page.  However, they shared with me the personal profile, which was:

1) In a business name

Violation:  Your personal page must be a “real” first and last name.  A business entity should have a presence on the Business Pages.

2) Highlighting ONLY a business in the “info box” and promoting their products and services

Violation:  Well, this is walking that tightrope again.  I cannot be dogmatic.  However, here is where people come to learn about “you”, not necessarily your business.  If you want to have your business in the URL section, great, but lets stop promoting what we do, and focus more on “who” we are.

We reviewed the Facebook terms of service, they decided to make some changes.

What about you?  What do you think?  Is this approach too strong? Should Facebook ease up and “allow” personal profiles to be whatever we want?  Should they force you to have a business page?  Should they open the limits to the number of “friends” you can have on your personal profile? Since they’ve reached 400M+ users and would not be able to manage enforcement, should we take a chance and promote, promote, promote?

Pick an area and let’s hear from you!

–Relationships matter more!

I don’t know about you, but the hype over having large communities might be a little over rated.  That is if you look at sheer numbers to determine influence.

Here’s what I mean, if you have recently received a “Facebook Friend” request, then ask yourself:

1) How does this person know me?

2) Why do they want to connect?

3) Do I really care?

4) What will I give back?

5) Have I tossed the ping-pong ball back by visiting them and giving a meaningful “shout-out” or acknowledged their presence?

It’s so easy to accept a request, only later to find out that you’ve been fooled by a spammer! Or worse, that you’ve become a “taker” and not a giver.

That applies to Twitter too!  Really, any community that you commit to joining expects something of you–engagement.  Will you “bring it” when you join?

Here are five tips to being a “giver” and not a taker while social networking:

1) Listen first.  Try get a sense for what your audience likes.  If it doesn’t work for you, swap out a friend or two to improve the quality of your network and relationships.

2) Think about what they need.  Give them both what they want and need.  You’ll only know this if you’ve grown your community in a targeted way.

3) Mix it up a little by making the shift from “marketer” to “problem solver”.  Stop pushing your stuff and pull a little to figure out a solution you can respond with.

4) Stop looking for your angle.  You know what I mean…you’ve got a favor “you” need.  STOP!  Put agendas aside and just “be here now”.

5) If you feel you have nothing of value to say, then be okay with contributing a “ditto” via RT (re-tweet).  Imitation is still the greatest form of flattery. Oh, and saying nothing at all might be the wise course too.

Ultimately, never forget that social networks are just platforms, and that we must humanize the tools.  A case in point, not long ago I noticed that Starbucks had a post on Twitter for a talent opportunity. Notice the human touch after I contributed a response…

Saw this while online

Thought of who in my network would fit.

They provided a human response. Notice the initials.

At the end of the day, people care about, and want to do business with people that the know, like and trust.  So be more than a “friend” or a “follower” taking up space on someones profile – be engaged and watch your influence shoot through the roof!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Growing a new community is hard work and may not change people’s habits (socialmediatoday.com)
• How to build your following on social sites (solutionset.com)
• 10 Ways to Measure Social Media (howtospoter.com)

Consider this:
An Argos worker was fired because he said that he ‘can’t wait to leave because it’s Sh**’ working for Argos.

A grocery chain in Ottawa fired several of its employees following negative comments on Facebook.

Even this:
Some Ontario schools have suspended their students after they found ‘offensive’ posts on Facebook about these schools!

What am I trying to say? You could lose your job or your school admission for something you write on social networking sites like Facebook. Seriously.

People are being penalized for what they are posting. Many are being denied jobs, dismissed from work and disciplined because of comments they have carelessly left lying around on social networking sites.

Why should you care?

Employers and hiring firms are increasingly using social networking websites like Facebook to check out potential employees and keep tabs on current employees. In the current social and political situation, you just cannot have anything working against you or diluting your prospects, least of all something like your Facebook profile.

Here are some ways in which you can protect your Facebook profile from the prying eyes of your boss.

Your Privacy setting:

A teacher in Charlotte, NC, was dismissed from work due to her profile on Facebook. Under her hobbies, she stated ‘drinking’ and ‘teaching chitlins in the Ghetto of Charlotte’. The teacher left her profile and her page open to public view. Keep in mind, this particular school is attended by minority students and is located in a low income neighborhood.

Who is viewing your profile at Facebook? Are you sure that these are people you have allowed access to?

If you go to the “Settings” page on Facebook and click on your ‘Profile’, you might see that more people than you have imagined are actually viewing what you have put up. You may have only a couple of friends, but what about your network?

If your profile is jam-packed with drunken quotes or if the pictures you posted are risqué, the first thing you do is limit access to the information. Make it viewable to friends only.

You do not want potential or current employers going through what you’ve put up.   Because they do check you out.

According to various surveys and reports, a good percentage of employers are checking Facebook before, after or during the recruitment process.

You don’t want to lose your job just because you were a little careless with your Facebook profile, do you?

Your content:

According to onrec.com, the top ten turn-offs for employers who go through profiles on Facebook include:
- Indecent language, vulgar jokes, unacceptable pictures
- Any evidence of substance abuse
- Criminal activity
- Fanatical views
- Membership to silly groups
- Bad mouthing of former employers or places of work

Interestingly, prospective employers do not stop with checking out a candidate’s profile. They also use what you’ve posted to find out more about your communication skills, general attitude and qualifications. So, if you’re really not what you claim to be, chances are, you’ve left traces of your lies in your conversation with others.

When your profile is subject to such minute inspection, do you need more reason to clean up your profile?

You can give your profile a swanky new look easily:
Get rid of silly quotes, inane or extreme views and distancing yourself from bigoted or pointless memberships.

Don’t forget to add some of your favorite books in addition to music and films. Employers love it when you appear well-read and profound.

Check closely for typos. Do not go for too much internet lingo. These might seem unimportant to you but your potential employers appreciate it if you can write ‘You’ instead of ‘U’ and stop using internet short forms.

Next, go through your photos – every single one of ‘em. Untag those that you do not want. That way, anyone snooping around cannot find that picture of yours.

- Remove pictures that look unflattering.
- Get rid of those where you’re doing something you shouldn’t.
- In case your friends have put in unflattering comments, remove those pictures too.

Your network:

Who’s on it? If your colleagues are a part of your network, be careful. Your boss might be friends with one of your colleagues.

Your posts:

You cannot always limit the people who see what you are writing. So, it makes sense to post the right stuff. Meaning, you don’t really want to shout to half the world that you’re thinking of throwing a sick leave so you can party at your neighbor’s house!

It’s not enough that the content on your own network is good, you must also take care while posting on someone else’s wall. Don’t throw out comments that you don’t want to be associated with.

Even though you delete content, it could remain on servers and be available on search engines. When such information gets into the wrong hands, it can cause major hiccups in decisions regarding a job, an admission or a promotion.

WARNING: Never post while you’re at work. The time of your post is plain to see. Ask yourself this: what will happen if your boss finds out you were updating your account while you were supposed to be working?

Why should you be so careful? The Police, hiring agencies, companies and schools are monitoring profiles at Facebook, MySpace and other such sites to uncover ‘improper’ content. What you write is a window to your private world. It’s like maintaining an ongoing virtual diary. How’s that for a thought?

User naivete combined with security gaps can ultimately lead to serious irreparable damage to your life.

Resource box:
1) Facebook can ruin your life
2) Employee uses racial slur in Facebook profile: Can you fire her?
3) Personal branding in the age of Google

Best practice: Backup your Facebook profile.

http://www.socialsafe.net

Remember, if you’re kicked off Facebook for any reason, you won’t have contacts, photos, videos, links or notes that you created. A best practice is to have your content on “your” system. You can utilize a service called Social Safe. Presently, it cost a mere $2.99. If you put a dollar value to every contact you made in Facebook, I’m sure their value would outweigh the cost!

Go ahead, download it now!

Last week, I conducted a Facebook 101: Getting business results webinar. It was a high level overview of the value of Facebook when integrating it into your business activity. To review the recorded webinar visit my site.

There were several questions, but one related to Facebook ads. As a follow up, I found Mari Smith’s post and thought I’d share it with you.

Engaging With Facebook Social Ads

Posted using ShareThis

In case you missed it, I’ve compiled relevant news topics related to social media from last week. http://tinyurl.com/socialmedianews010409

Call to action:
Want to increase your market share?
* Find an article on this list that resonates with you and comment on the blog, share your viewpoint or expertise.
* Also, comment here or reference us in a backlink, on the articles that were the most compelling for you.

Enjoy!

sociamedia_newsinreview_wkending010409

Everyone is frenzied about Social Media and how to use the tools for business purposes.

Wondering if Facebook is a good tool to help you connect and grow your business? I developed this presentation to give an overview of the importance of Social Media, how to *enter* the room and strategies to get up and going.

There is no audio here, but the *live* course presented:

*7 ways to create a dynamic FB presence
*Optimizing your profile
*Hands on use of FB
*Best Practices

There are two parts: 101 (for beginners) and 102 (intermediate).

To register, visit http://tinyurl.com/virtualpartnerevents

13 Reasons your Facebook account will be disabled – Here’s what we’re hearing from people all over the web…enjoy the list: http://gsfn.us/t/29p