It is time consuming to build a worthwhile presence on any of the above networks so it would be a mistake to jump into all of them at once.  It’s smarter to take one at a time and give it your focused attention for a period of time.

Sounds great… what I have many aspects to my business??

If you have a multifaceted business, you should choose one aspect of your business to highlight and promote on a network.   Profile pages that list every business you’re involved in and every website you own is not likely to be effective as visitors are faced with too many choices.

For example:

You can add pages to your Facebook profile to highlight the part of your business that relates most closely to you on a personal level or that connects to a popular hobby.

1. Create a profile on LinkedIn that would appeal to professional contacts.
2. Create a Squidoo lens for each topic you have created an information product or content website about.
3. Create a Twitter account and update what you’re doing, what you’re writing about, etc

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Years ago when social networking primarily consisted of message boards and forums, etiquette there was pretty simple. The rules were black and white and pretty easy to remember. These days with all the various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Squidoo , the rules are now gray.

This is especially true for business owners that use social networking as part of their marketing plan. Are the rules the same? Are they different? I mean seriously how do you know what you should be posting/tweeting/blogging about in the business area?

Recently I encountered a situation on a social networking application that really threw me for a loop. Someone had posted a comment to another person’s post that was just completely rude, unprofessional and inconsiderate. Not only was it none of their business to condemn Person A’s decisions but Person B continued with their rude, sarcastic comments. It was because of that I began to ponder what the exactly where the rules where for social networking etiquette.

Now there was no Miss Manners book of Social Networking to turn to so I thought I’d start off with a few of my own..

1. Be open and honest yet fair
2. Play nicely - Don’t be a bully!
3. Be respectful
4. Remember - to be transparent and utilize full disclosure
5. Before you post something online , ask yourself would I say this in person

I guess the most important thing to remember is that if you don’t follow the “rules”, it will come back to haunt you one way or another.

What “rules” do you follow when social networking?

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Yep you read that right! Today is the day that you should delete your MySpace account. I’m not a big fan of MySpace never have been. Facebook and other social networking sites are far better in their ability to create conversations within your community.  I’ll be deleting my account today as well! Will you?

Simon over at bloggasm.com is asking everyone to delete their MySpace accounts! Here is a list of things that bug him…

1. You rarely log in to Myspace except to delete spam friend requests from nude webcam girls.

2. You spend five minutes writing a wall post only to hit an error message when you try to post it because of all the website glitches.

3. You’re a girl who constantly gets marriage proposals from random men in the middle east.

4. You visit someone’s Myspace profile only to suddenly have music start blasting out of your speakers. Bonus points if it happens to you while you’re at work.

To read more, click here 

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Written by Wendy Davis of MediaPost Publications

After weeks of criticism, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Wednesday finally apologized for the controversial Beacon program, which publishes information about members’ off-site purchases to their friends. The company also changed the program so that people can now opt-out once and for all.

But yesterday’s developments might prove to be too little, too late to satisfy privacy advocates and/or disgruntled users of the site.

At launch, the program publicized information about people’s purchases unless they specifically told Facebook not to do so. In other words, the program shared information by default.

This idea is so staggeringly bad that even now, four weeks later, it’s still astounding that Facebook ever went ahead with it.

And now that Facebook seems to have realized the mistake, it’s not clear what the long-term effects will be. While Facebook’s members show no signs of abandoning the site, the company clearly has squandered at least some goodwill.

What’s more, Facebook’s timing with the original launch also couldn’t have been worse, given that the Federal Trade Commission only days before held meetings about whether some current ad strategies endanger people’s privacy. In fact, Facebook’s original envelope-pushing program clearly illustrates how online ad techniques can result in private information becoming public.

Even now that the program has been changed, advocates, regulators and legislators are likely to remember how quickly privacy can disappear online.

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