Some Business Rules for Social Media

Do you invite Twitter “followers” to become friends on Facebook? Or, can you link up with LinkedIn business connections on Twitter? Of course, those links are possible – but do you really want to go there? In this article, Linda explores the barriers you might want to erect in your social media meanderings.

Some Guidelines

The ability to use a number of social networking tools is precisely why using them is so tricky. Here are some things to think about to help you decide how, exactly, you want to use the tools you have available to you.

Learn Your Platforms: If you go by the list above that shows how recruiters source job applicants, then you know that you need to learn about at least three to six platforms to spread yourself across a wider area. Additionally, it's good to know how to categorize the relationships you build over time. Where do you want to socialize with your family? Is that a different space than where you want to socialize with the person you met at the business social last week? Then you need to know, up front, where you can lead this latter person to build a more solid relationship.

You also need to step in the other person's shoes. For instance, if you want to add a LinkedIn business relationship to Facebook, you might be overstepping the bounds in a relationship – especially if that person uses Facebook only for family and friends. On the other hand, asking an old friend for a recommendation on LinkedIn might create awkwardness if that old friend has never experienced a business situation with you.

Customize Your Platforms: Check privacy settings, learn about all the widgets you can use, learn about connectivity and keep re-checking your options often. Some tools, like TweetDeck, can allow you to update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and Foursquare accounts through desktop, iPad and iPhone. You also can manage multiple Twitter accounts through TweetDeck. And, multiple Twitter accounts are perfect to use Twitter both as a personal and as a business tool – your name for business, and an alias for other pursuits.

Be sober when using a tool like TweetDeck, however. You don't want to post something to Facebook intended for Twitter, and you might really regret it if you post something to LinkedIn that was intended for Facebook.

Watch Who You Associate With: You can be as picky as you like in who you follow, and in some cases, you can be picky about who follows you in most social networking sites. For instance, you may want to stick to career associations when you use Twitter as a business connection. If you're a writer, you may want to build a network of writers in your genre. If you're on LinkedIn, you definitely need to build a cadre of associates within your career field. Check everyone out before you follow them or before you allow them to follow you or if you want to do the reciprocal recommendation (via LinkedIn). In one case, the alleged Russian sleeper spy Anna Chapman had 181 Facebook friends and a number of followers on her @nycrentalsnews Twitter feed. She also had 150 connections on LinkedIn and five people recommended her.

While you cannot know, exactly, who a person might be behind their social networking bravado, you can at least check out their Web site and – in important instances – ask questions about this person. In some cases, I've asked people outright on Facebook why they want to be friends. In some cases, they may be long-lost relatives or friends from high school who have changed their names (re: marriage, etc.). But, in most cases, I hand pick my friends for Facebook, and your request may be ignored.

Twitter is the worst, however, for picking up followers who are absolute junk. Spambots and kids (and adults0 with too much time on their hands search for key words and may bug you to death if you let them. Remember that you have a "Block" feature on Twitter that you can use with abandon. Use Listorious to determine who you might want to follow – look for keywords and then look at the number of followers on both ends...if that user is following 1,500 people, yet only 28 follow back, then you might reconsider your desire to follow that person as well.

PS – If Lisorious doesn't crank your tractor, then try Google. Use search: site:twitter.com/*/keyword to search for Twitter Lists containing your keyword. You can also search for multiple words by putting a hyphen between them, such as site:twitter.com/*/business-news. Be sure to avoid any spaces in your search (via Tweetsmarter).

Make Appropriate Comments: Remember that you are limited to 140 characters on Twitter, including hash tags. That boundary limits you to certain requests and suggestions. Remember that LinkedIn is focused on business, and that Foursquare can reveal too much about what you do, and it also can be annoying to others. Plus, it isn't listed on that group of social networking sites from JobVite shown previously. I think of Foursquare as the Farmville of the social networking tools, and Farmville annoys the crap out of me.

That said, Facebook just announced the availability of a new feature for users creating accounts on the social network: Suggested Interests. Facebook will now recommend that new users sign up for updates from ("Like") publishers with high reader engagement and subscribed-to by people demographically similar to themselves. This feature is in the works, and I won't say much more about it until it has been vetted by the "first to gotta know about apps" folks. Harking back to last week's article about Facebook privacy, this week, Read Write Web states:

Facebook's ability to recommend friends that you actually know when you create an account, based only on your email address, is pretty jaw dropping in and of itself. Facebook says the page recommendation is based on users similar to yourself, but these recommendations are surfaced before you fill out your profile information. Facebook is using some seriously magical secret sauce to figure out who your friends might be, then what you might like based on your shared demographics, before asking you anything more than your email, name and age. That's pretty amazing. Presumably they are pinging 3rd party email databases - but that would be an interesting story to dig into!

All in all, it might make you wonder why Facebook made it to the #2 slot in their social networking tools graph. And, it also might make you wonder how secure Facebook really is, especially if you use it as a private sanctuary for friends and family, yet you're seeking work.

Take it Offline When Possible: This one comes from the Mashable/Business article 5 Rules for Professional Social Networking Success.

Nothing beats face-to-face interaction or voice-to-voice interaction, when geography prevents you from being in the same location. Social media platforms are great for making introductions and warming up relationships, but ultimately you should take your networking conversations beyond the confines of Twitter and LinkedIn.

Get out when you can. Attend seminars and workshops to meet new people. When you meet someone face-to-face, you have an interaction with them that is unlike one that you'd have if you only met through Twitter or LinkedIn. But, beware – I've met people face-to-face after I met them online, and sometimes that face-to-face meeting changes everything, and sometimes not for the better.