How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linkedin, Blogs, eMail... we are all building quite an online presence and one that might be of particular interest to those we may one day leave behind.

TIME Magazine suggests you make a plan for your online accounts-especially if you don't want your inbox contents or that embarrassing Craigslist personal you posted revealed to the shock of your survivors.

There are even online services that will take care of it for you.

Google Reader Goes Social

Today Google Reader has been updated with social capabilities. Users can now easily send feed items to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Blogger, and others. To enable any of these, simply go to the “Settings” area of Google Reader and enable the ones you want to use. You can even customize the “Send To” feature to enable sending items just about anywhere - even if it isn't listed.

Should you "friend" your employees?

Several times in recent weeks we have posted here about the increasing importance of social networking as a component of one's "hireability". More and more employers are recognizing the value of the sociosphere to marketing, sales and customer relations, and more value is being revealed every day. When Twitter was off the air for a few hours last week the very real costs to marketers, wired corporations and connected entrepreneurs could probably be measured in millions of dollars – very real dollars. Social sites like Facebook and MySpace give businesses unique insight into client and customer psyches and provide a medium, when well managed, that can be of great value. But, what about the internal value of social media to an organization. What can an employer learn about his employees and vice-versa.

The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian references an interesting article at Mashable (via American Express Open Forum), where author Ben Parr says:

"While social media for business has clearer, more tangible benefits to the success of your company, social media for personal use can be a little tricky. On the one hand, it helps you become closer with friends, co-workers, and customers. On the other hand, it can lead to awkward tensions and embarrassing disasters."

"One area where there still isn’t a lot of definition is the relationship between employees, bosses, and employers on the web. Is there a problem with friending your subordinates? Does it help build cohesion among staff, or is it just strange? Do you even want to? I’m hoping to provide some clarity and answers to these questions."

So, Should you friend your employees?

What benefits could there be from friending employees? Social media’s great strength is building connections and sharing information, no matter where you are. By knowing more about each other, you and your employees may become more comfortable with one another and become a more cohesive team. It’s also a faster way to disseminate information to others.

What drawbacks could there be from friending employees? You could quickly learn about things you never wanted to know, and vice-versa. Many people, especially young and starry-eyed college graduates, still put up pictures of themselves drinking or in less-than-flattering situations. You or a friend could also say something that you’d never want employees to learn about.

What’s considered “safe”? It’s fine to interact with employees (and bosses, board members, and potential clients) on professional social networks, primarily LinkedIn

And Twitter? Should I follow my employees? Unless the person has a private Twitter account, it’s not generally a problem. In fact, this may be the best way to get to know an employee outside of work without violating his or her privacy. And your tweets will hopefully provide some insight or even lessons to your team. Yes, there have been incidents like “Cisco Fatty,” where a 22 year old lost a job offer via Twitter, but these instances are very rare.

How about Facebook and MySpace? These are the tricky ones. For many, these are personal and private accounts that provide a looking glass into aspects close to him or her. Because of that, my personal suggestion is to ask before friending on these social networks. There are benefits to a closer relationship with your staff, but don’t invade their privacy or make them feel uncomfortable by friending out of the blue. If you’re still unsure, I highly recommend a CNN/CareerBuilder article on the subject.

So what should my ground rule be? Have a point to your social media friending. Following on Twitter will help you learn more about the insights of your employees, but you may want to consider friending on Facebook only if you’ve turned into fast friends with members of your team. Be respectful of privacy, don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mom to hear, and ask when you’re unsure, and you should navigate the waters of personal social media use just fine.

Social-media skills and job hunting

Having recently posted about BestBuy's 250 Twitter followers requisite for a marketing position, we now notice the Atlanta Journal and Constitution has published a piece about the growing significance of a "social presence" in the résumés of those applying for positions in advertising, marketing or communications. It seems the horse is definitely out of the barn and you Twitter-haters are gonna be trampled. The article cites several recent job listings in the Atlanta market:

A senior account executive position at Softscribe Inc. requires “5 years Tech PR Agency Record + Twitter.”

Mosaic Sales Solutions describes the “key characteristics” of its ideal Atlanta market training specialist as “an avid user of the Internet, blogs, Twitter and/or has a facebook page or other social networking account.”

Valtech Technologies seeks an Atlanta scrum master/project manager whose critical responsibilities will include “social collaboration including work spaces like Wiki’s, blogs, Twitter, etc.”

“It is now the rage,” said Brett Stevens, president of SearchLogix recruiter company. “Do you Facebook? Do you Twitter?”

Stevens said social media skills are particularly important for jobs in tech business, sales, public relations and media. In non-marketing or PR jobs, Stevens said, social media skills are not as critical, but they can indicate to employers how technologically savvy an applicant is.

“They just want to know can you do it,” Stevens said. “It’s not a must-have.”

"This social media craze among employers is creating some complications for job applicants and employees such as blurring the lines between personal and professional lives", said Bob Van Rossum, president of MarketPro, a marketing recruitment company,

“Facebook pages aren’t about business, they’re about you as a person, but how people perceive you as a person will ultimately impact how they perceive the place where you work,” Van Rossum said. “It’s a very complicated challenge.”

Van Rossum’s advice to job applicants? Use social media to search for jobs and use your own Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to protect your “brand” image.

Van Rossum said his company uses Facebook, blogs and LinkedIn to advertise positions and “reach people where they are,” and that social media provides opportunities to show you’re an expert in your field by generating interesting content that will get you noticed by employers.

Google adds Farsi to its Google Translate service

Google announced today it has added Farsi to the list of languages Google Translate can convert automatically to English. Persian was already on the list of languages Google hoped to include on Google Translate, but political upheaval in Iran and the resulting media crackdown has made the Internet a key source of information coming into and out of that country. Facebook also rushed a beta translation of its site in Farsi into production, hoping more people will use the site to communicate current events coming out of Iran.

From The New York Times

Facebook, terms of service and your data.

The blogosphere is buzzing about Monday's changes to Facebook’s terms of use. Under both the old and new rules, members grant Facebook a license to use content “on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.” But the revised agreement, implemented with no warning or user consent, eliminates language saying this license would “automatically expire” if content were removed from the site. The issue of who controls the data posted to the site is a massive gray area that continues to evolve as Internet companies and consumers shape social norms of how to define trust in the digital age and share their lives through new technology.

Facebook already knows your age, education and employment data, it has seen your wedding pictures - and anything else you have decided to post. The key question is, do consumers understand what can happen to their data? Privacy experts often warn that the notion that consumers can control the content they post online is illusory. Yet, most users don’t bother reading terms of service or question a company’s intentions when they sign up for a new site. Most of us just trust the vendor to do a good job and protect our data. In response to the uproar Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said, “We wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.” I hope so. Zuckerberg's note to users is here.

The Social Media Etiquette Handbook

Social Media pro Tamar Weinberg has written up "The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook" over at her Techipedia blog. Learn what not to do to benefit from LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed, and other communities from someone who really knows.

Facebook, for example:

Adding users as friends without proper introductions. If you’re looking to make friends, tell people who you are. Don’t assume they know you — especially if they, well, don’t.

Abuse application invites and consistently invite friends to participate in vampire games. Many call this spam.

Abusing group invites. If your friends are interested, they’ll likely join without your “encouragement.” And if they don’t accept, don’t send the the group request more than once by asking them to join via email, wall post, or Facebook message.

Turning your Facebook profile photo into a pitch so that you can gather leads through your Facebook connections. Thanks, but no thanks. Facebook is about real friendships and not about business — at least not to me.

Using a fake name as your Facebook name. I can’t tell you how many people have added me and their last name is “Com” or “Seo.” I’m not adding you unless you can be honest about who you are. Once upon a time, Facebook deleted all of the accounts that portrayed people as business entities or things. I wish Facebook would employ the same tactics yet again, because I’m not adding a fake identity as a friend.

Publicizing a private conversation on a wall post. In case it isn’t obvious, Facebook wall posts are completely public to all your friends (unless you tweak your privacy settings). Private matters should be handled privately: via email or even in Facebook private messages.

Tagging individuals in unflattering pictures that may end up costing your friends their jobs. Avoid the unnecessary commentary also, especially on your childhood pictures that portray your tagged friends as chubby and not so popular. Further, if your friends request to be untagged, don’t make a stink of it.