(An insight into things that could get you into trouble for saying/posting on your social media profiles)

Users of social networking sites disclose a lot of information to providers and users of those services, and this raises a number of legal and commercial questions.  What are the basic do’s and don’ts of posting profile data?

Do:

• Be savvy about the personal data you upload.  By posting information, you may unwittingly be making your data available to strangers and there is potential for that data to be misused.  Some parts of social networking websites are public spaces; once the information is “out there”, it may be difficult to control what happens to it because others may be able to copy it, alter your photos, etc even after you take it down.  Therefore certain information (details of “real life” location, e.g. home, school, work place) should not be uploaded to public spaces. 

• Bear in mind that information posted could be embarrassing or damaging in a different context outside the social network.  There are various reports of people missing out on employment opportunities due to potential employers reviewing social networking profiles as part of their recruitment procedure.  However, potential employers need to be cautious using this as a recruitment tool.

• Be careful what information you post about your employer.  If you post information about your company which is inaccurate, or misrepresents what the company does, this could constitute misrepresentation or a breach of advertising legislation/codes of conduct for which you and your employer could be liable in some situations. Furthermore, for listed companies, by posting certain information you could be in breach of insider dealing regulations.

Don't:

• Use content belonging to a third party.  Where content is uploaded that is owned by or based on content owned by third parties, this could amount to infringement of the third party’s rights, such as copyright.

• Post personal data relating to someone else. You shouldn’t upload data relating to someone else, unless that person has consented, because this could impinge on their privacy and data protection rights

Also, the social networking site’s terms of use will usually specify that the third party should consent to any of his/her data being posted.  Defamation may also be an issue.

I am a firm, solid believer that no matter what kind of business you are, whether it be a local barber to a small garage, up to a small chain of business and then all the way up to an international corporation, your business can have its' place and reap benefits from social media.

It's not necessarily about just having the bare essentials; a Facebook page, a Twitter account and maybe a LinkedIn company page though. It's more about ensuring that your time spent on these social media sites is worth your while. The golden rule is that if it's not going to help your business, whether it be financially or branding-wise, then don't do it!

The way to go about social media is to find your target sites, understand your demographics and your target audience, and then incorporate it into your marketing.

Are you a small restaurant in a local town? Set up a Twitter account, find and follow as many residents and local businesses as you can, and then offer a free drink if they mention a code or a phrase that you send out through Twitter.

Are you a barber? Do the same as above, but offer discounted hair-cuts through social media.

It's not necessarily just about giving stuff away, and using promotions to get people from their computers/mobile phones and into your store. Engage with your audience, talk to your followers and your fans. Find out how their days are going, what they do for a living… become friends with them!

If you have any questions about social media, please leave a comment or give us a call!

Social media is everywhere you look. Not just online but in the papers, yes even the broadsheets, television, radio and mobile phones, it's just everywhere!

The question is how are large national and international businesses engaging in this arena and how are they managing the communication?

Well, there are a few methods, dispersed services and applications available such as KickApps, Sparta, Small World Labs, but move over KickApps, Comment Technologies truly Kicks Ass!

So Comment Technologies is the new kid on the block, but rather than just being a platform, it's a social marketing one stop service.

All of the other platforms are just that, platforms! They are something you need to learn, adapt and manage. This means slow lead times to launch, increased workforce and a very steep executive management learning curve.

Comment removes all of these adoption issues by providing a full end to end service of implementation, data migration and management. Meaning that any company can have there social media solution in place extremely quickly without resource constraints. Furthermore, while executive management and marketing departments are getting up to speed community engagement, growth and moderation can all be managed by the full range of Comment Technologies services.

However, it doesn't stop there! Where other platforms either focus on just building communities and/or selling advertising space, Comment provides a cutting edge back end reporting and analysis service comparable to best of breed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

So you want to target a new product launch in the central states of North America, focusing on married women aged 20 to 35, no problem. The information is available at a touch of a button.

Along with such powerful reporting and export features comes enterprise quality slice and dice import facilities. Got your customers in SAP or JDE? Hey no problem, import and synchronisation are a breeze.       

We feel the real value of Comment is not just its top grade, financial services quality, infrastructure but the services that can be bolted on to enable the business to adopt quickly and integrate into its day to day activity gradually.

If you are looking at social media as a marketing strategy and would like to know more, feel free to fire us over an email or connect with us on Linked-In, Twitter or Facebook.

It seams like everywhere you look online nowadays, all you find are widgets!

So you may well ask "What the hell's a widget?"

Above is dictionary.com interpretation of the word, but in the realm of social media its idea is, well, anything really! Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and Google all provide widgets of one sort or another.

Most of the time a widget is a small component of a web page. It's a piece of code developed by one company/website which is then run on many other websites in a hope to allow visitors to connect easier. For example, on our blog you’ll find 2 widgets we are using, one of them is a Twitter re-tweet button and the other is a Facebook share button.

These work in much the same way as most social media widgets work, they are small HTML & Javascript snippets of code your web designer can simply drop onto your pages and off you go. You're using a widget!

However, the plethora of widgets available just seams to be a little overwhelming and in many cases completely useless and unnecessary. I can imagine in many companies trying to tap into the social media market, the directors sit around a table together with the designers and developers and they say "We have to make it different and stand out in the crowd, any ideas?" to which some bright spark says, "I know, lets create a widget!"

I may sound a little negative here, but I’m trying not to be, honest. Just create widgets with purpose! So I have listed a few of our favourites below, please feel free to comment and let us know yours also.

Re-Tweet Button: http://tweetmeme.com
Facebook Share: http://facebook.com & http://www.fbshare.me
Social Networking Components by Google Friends Connect http://www.google.com/friendconnect
RSS & ATOM Feeds: http://feedburner.google.com
Gravatars (Used in blog comments etc.) http://en.gravatar.com 

You've probably seen it on the end or beginning of a Twitter tweet, it normally looks something like "#FF @BeginInterMktg", but what does it mean?

Well, #FF stands for Follow Friday and the hashtag (#) is a Twitter search feature which allows users to group information into a category of some kind. Try a search for #FF here. OK, I know that hasn't really answered the question, so what does Follow Friday mean?

People, especially marketers, want to grow their followers. #FF is a way to recommend others to follow them. In doing this, you can also grow your followers because of a kind of mutual gratitude.

Here's how it works:

You identify people you follow and decide to recommend them. You obviously can decide who to recommend yourself, that part's up to you. You may like someone's tweets and find them useful, so you want to share them, they may have previously re-tweeted one of your tweets, or they may have already recommended you, the choice is yours.

Next, pull up Twitter and start an update as follows:

#FF @UserName1 @UserName2

Where you replace @UserName1 and 2 with the users you want to recommend, but don't forget the @ sign in front of their user names.

Hit the 'Update' button and your done. Now make a note of your current follower numbers, you should see it increase over the next few hours.

The reason your followers are likely to increase is because anyone watching the #FF stream may well follow the people your recommending but are also highly likely to follow the people doing the recommending.

It's that simple, so don't delay, get Following on Fridays, and then have a great weekend.

The Google Wave is gathering momentum and the beta testers are having quite a ride. The question is what and how can the Wave be leveraged by business users? Firstly take a look at this superb video which contains strong language but does demonstrate the Waves amazing functionality of the search mega giants embrace of social media.

Wow, the system is a fully integrated media extravaganza, with the ability to pull in images, movies, sound clips, background tracks and multiple format text. The user can start multiple waves (conversations) and select participants by their wave avatar (image or photo) and then start collaborating.

The end result is a single platform which looks like it can be used by business, not only for marketing, but customer support, project management, quick internal and external conversations, the list just goes on.

Many dispersed workforces have been using chat-room technology to connect quickly for quite sometime, but the interactivity is normally limited to some text and a smiley :o). Recently with Facebook and Twitter, some have started to use these slightly richer platforms to perform the same tasks. However, the very real and rich components of The Wave may well be so compelling that business once again migrates to the better platform.

From a marketing perspective, the Wave will need to encourage the same mass buy-in as Facebook and Twitter. Googles Friend Connect hasn't yet hit the big time but we are sure The Wave is going to hit much harder.