I was going through my 23,321 emails this morning and noting all of my new Twitter followers.  I clicked on one out of sheer curiosity simply because he had the term SEO (search engine optimization) in his ‘screen name’. The guy had over 3,000 twitter followers and has only had the twitter account for less than a month.  He has tweeted a grand total of 11 times.  Out of even deeper curiosity, I clicked his followers list to see who was following him: Nearly every one of his twitter followers was a multi level marketer, a realtor, or a spammer of some other sort. So, congrats to him for building such a following, he now has 3,000+ spammers following his every move with permission granted to leave spam all over his Twitter profile. Needless to say, I won’t be following him back.

When it comes to social media and branding your company online, pay attention to who you are following: follow leaders in your industry, follow pioneers and inventors, follow your successful clients and prospects, follow the people who matter. The more targeted people you follow and engage, the more targeted people you will get to follow you back enabling you to converse with them and build a mutually beneficial online and possibly offline relationship.

Found this great QUICK video from Seth Godin this morning and it really hit home.  When it comes to social media networking or even off-line networking, simply handing out business cards and collecting followers on Twitter, Facebook etc. is pointless if you aren’t contributing….

There has been a lot of talk lately about social media and the potential negative impact it can have on business.  The blogosphere has been speculating on how much time social media costs companies, worrying about privacy issues, secret secret company data being disseminated all over the net and IT concerns about hacks etc., through many social media online venues. In my last blog I addressed some social media pros for your business, in this blog, Im going to play negative nelly and discuss some cons for businesses and social media:

Employees Spend more time on Facebook tending to their mafia wars and sorority sisters then they do actual work.
This is becoming a huge concern, HOWEVER, I witnessed a lady sitting at a desk today for about 1.5 hours playing an intense game of solitaire on her PC while she didn’t think anyone was watching….. Social media can indeed be a time waster and burn through company money quicker than crap through a goose, BUT, as I mentioned in my earlier post, harnessing the power of your employees online activities by branding your company and being social with your actual customers could save you thousands in other areas.

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I’ve been fortunate to speak at several local tradeshows / seminars about Social Media lately, and one of the most common questions I get from businesses during my presentation is “How do I keep my company safe with Social Media?”

This is a VERY legitimate question as companies are starting to block access internally to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter due to hacking attempts and mostly, due to employee inefficiency.  A gentleman made a crack during my last presentation that he FIRES each employee he catches online. So, employers, business owners are seeing social media as a colossal waste of time as opposed to an opportunity to grow their corporate brand online: here’s a few opportunities I see that could be a positive to implementing a social media campaign for your business and could quite possibly save you money and improve efficiency.

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A friend forwarded this video to me this morning: I think it says it all about the fundamental shift in the way that we communicate in both life and in business: Social media is truly here to stay, businesses that don’t embrace this revolution may not be here for long:

Be careful what you post on your Facebook or Twitter wall….

Consider Bob.  Bob is in debt up to his eyeballs.  He owes everyone and their brother money, he owes the credit card companies, he owes his credit union, he owes his mortgage company, heck he even owes Cousin Ralphie for that thing with the guy and the rabbit AND he keeps asking his boss for a big fat raise. Bob loves the finer things in life…. Lavish dinners, the latest Apple Products, a nice cigar now and again, weekend getaways, fine wines and whiskey. Bob also loves bragging about all of his purchases on his facebook wall:

Example:
“Bob Smith just spent the night at the Gaylord Palms, ate dinner at the Ritz Carlton, visited Disney, drank a pint of Johnnie Walker Red, smoked a case of Cubans, went to the clubs, tipped the doorman a few bills, bought Trixie a new diamond necklace, and visited the Apple store to pick up a new AppleTV and wants his Boss to know that I think he is a doofus.”

What Bob doesn’t know is that everyone of those bill collectors are paying attention.  They read Bob’s Facebook posts. They are annoyed that Bob hasn’t ponied up or taken any of their harassing phone calls. Even more fun, Bob’s boss is a friend of Bob on facebook and sees all of his posts, so while Bob is whining for a raise, Bob’s boss can see why. Bob’s bill collectors and Bob’s boss are building quite a case against Bob and could use it against him to collect debt or even fire Bob. Bob could be in trouble.

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