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An article in Computerworld worries me. Don't 'over think' social media strategy, written by a Chief Information Officer (CIO), uses examples from Telstra and Johnson & Johnson as presented in a panel discussion at the CeBIT 2011 technology conference in Sydney. The crux of the advice is get started with social networking and work it out as you go. Like so many other things written about social media, it's the wrong advice from the wrong person.

Social Media has nothing to do with your IT department
The first 15 years of my career were spent in software development for business applications and systems software. I've done the hard yards in computer centres and development labs so my opinion is based on in-depth knowledge of information technology. One thing I know for sure is social media – and social media strategy – has no business in IT.

Social Media has everything to do with marketing
Social media tools are not technical. They require no technical skill beyond the ability anyone with an email account has already mastered. Unless your CIO is involved in strategic marketing decisions highly unlikely in most organisations the last person you want mapping out a social media strategy is your CIO.

I bristled when I read the advice in Computerworld but I wasn't surprised. As more businesses hop on the social media super-highway, it's common to see the wrong people behind the wheel. Social media is, for a large part, the networking side of your brand management. It's imperative the people planning your social media activity and posting updates to the tools are worthy ambassadors for your company. Who should NOT be working in social media for your business?

Who are the wrong people?
Think about it. Do you send your most junior people to represent you at key industry events attended by all your stakeholders? Does the receptionist write your media releases? Do you let your technology gurus hold press conferences? I didn't think so. Handing social media activity to the junior people in your organisation is like giving your teenager the keys to a race car. One thing is certain. They're going to crash and it's your business that's going to end up in the ditch. Every week we're treated to another company, government department or public figure suffering major brand damage inflicted in a social media channel.

Who are the right people?
Social networking is an extension of your marketing efforts. It needs to live in the marketing department. The most strategic minds and creative brains in your organisation should be driving your social media. Responsible, passionate company champions are the folks you want managing your online reputation. When managed well, your social media presence becomes a valuable asset to your company.

The Take-Away
A carefully considered content marketing plan should drive your social media activity. Social media is a small part of an overall picture but carries the ability to wreak havoc with your reputation. It does not belong in IT any more than it belongs in accounting or other infrastructure functions. Let IT advise on cloud computing or a broadband network but turn to marketing for help with social networking.

Who owns your social media activity?

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Do you know what the word "ideation" means? How about "subitise"? Until recently, I didn't know what they meant and wasn't even sure they were actual words. I have four dictionaries on my desk, two synonym finders and two thesauruses. I couldn't find either word in any of the eight books.

Boy, do I feel stupid?
Just the opposite. My overwhelming feeling was irritation. Why? Because the writer, in both cases, was attempting to establish authority on their subject matter by using fancy pants words. I'm at a loss why people do this, especially when it comes to marketing documents. If you have a really big-brained person reading your document, they probably know at least as much as you do. If the reader isn't quite so gifted – like me – the results are worse. 1) The reader will feel stupid and quietly go away or, 2) The reader will think you're an idiot and possibly blab about it in a blog post. Either way, you haven't gained the sort of influence you're after.

What's the big ideation?
A few well-placed tweets and appeals to the brainiacs in my network revealed the definitions. Subitise means, "to perceive the number of (a group of items) at a glance and without counting". Ideation means "idea generation". Both words are psychological terms and have no place in business communication. My query revealed more ridiculous words/phrases. My favourite was shared by @davidlmorris, "verbal facilitation" used in place of "talking". Oh brother!

Take-Away
When writing marketing documents, express yourself in a simple, straightforward way. Using big words and flowery phrases doesn't impress and, at worst, offends your reader. The idea is to communicate, not confuse.

What words have sent you looking in the dictionary lately?

Do you know what keeps most content from being great? Okay, let's take a step back from greatness for a moment. Do you know what you can do to greatly improve the chance of your content being read? Even though we're bombarded with advice on how to get noticed on the web and in print, most of what I see suffers from the same discouraging blight. I'm going to let you in on a secret weapon the best content marketers use every single day.

It's NOT about you
That's right. My unscientific observation says most business communications suck in the biggest way. Why? Because people are trying to attract your attention by broadcasting every bit of information they have about their organisation. When was the last time you wanted to talk to someone blasting you with their own news? Don't you like to be included? Isn't it more interesting to be part of the conversation? Of course it is.

It's about your audience
You've seen the best communicators move into stuffy "corporate" speak when they're writing for work, right? Think about how you speak to someone in person. Even in the most conservative business environment, your language addresses your audience whether it's one person or a group of people. You don't have to be boring or self-centred to come across as credible or professional. So why do it in your writing?

Here are great tips to keep your business outwardly focused:

Write for them
Change your language to use "you" and "your" instead of "we" and "our". This is the single biggest thing you can do to improve everything you write. Consider two ways to say the same thing:
"ACME solutions are focused on quality. We do everything possible to ensure we get it right."
and
"You can count on quality solutions from ACME. Your business is our first concern."
Once you get in the habit, it's hard to write any other way. Brian Massey has mastered the technique at his blog at The Conversion Scientist.

Ask questions
Nothing draws someone into your sphere quicker than asking a question. We all like to be consulted. If you eavesdrop on normal conversations, they're peppered with questions. Put questions in everything you write. For a great example, read the work of Paul Hassing at the myBRC Small Business Owner blog.

Write personally
It's really useful to think of a single person when developing your content. If you've developed a buyer persona, give it a name and write to that person. If not, write as if you're speaking directly to your best customer. It's much easier to speak one-on-one than to address a large crowd. The same is true for writing. Nearly every post on this blog has been written with one person in mind. You'll know you've got it right when people say, "I feel like you were speaking directly to me."

Talk about benefits, not features
Honestly, no one really cares about features. They don't. They care about how you're going to help them solve a problem. Go back to the classic marketing example of the power drill. Your client is really only interested in the hole left behind not the casing, the power supply, or the carrying case. When you bog down in features, you're talking about yourself again. Have a look at the ezytire `About Us' page for a wonderful example of blatantly explaining benefits.

Give your stuff away
One thing content marketers know for sure is people love free stuff. They remember who gave it to them. They come back for more. They tell all their friends. Putting a price tag on your content is about you. Giving stuff away is about them. Have a look at Joe Pulizzi's, Please Steal My Content video on YouTube.

What can you give away and still run a profitable business? It varies from business to business but some good examples are:

• Blogging and guest blogging
• Public speaking
• White papers
• Case studies
• Newsletters
• PowerPoint Presentations
• Referrals
• Recommendations

Getting people to read anything in an age of information overload is difficult. When you stay in broadcast mode, you're not going to capture the attention of the people you're most trying to reach. The secret weapon content marketers use every day is to put the spotlight on clients and prospects. Turning your focus outwards gives you more opportunity to get your message across and develop loyalty in your networks and customer base. Being generous with your information keeps them coming back. You're probably doing it every day in your personal life; why not make the leap in your business communications, too?

What`s your secret weapon?

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Have you noticed an increase in SPAM comments on your blog? In the past few months, I've been hit hard. I've also noticed the people doing it have a few new tricks. Historically, I used to get comments full of links and text with no relation to my post topic or even to my blog – obvious SPAM. It's becoming a lot harder to spot the dodgy comments but they do have common features.

Becoming familiar with the tactics of the SPAMMER is the first step to keeping unwanted messages off your own blog. The last thing I want to do is support these people or the companies using their services. To identify a SPAM comment, look for these attributes:

• 1) First name only Legitimate people leave both their first and last name. SPAMMERs go out of their way to be vague about their identity.
• 2) Everything in lower case These people are spending ALL day on a keyboard. It's a lazy profession and they're often so lazy they can't use a shift key.
• 3) Comments are on old posts SPAM comments are usually attached to posts at least 6 months old.
• 4) One or two sentences at maximum These people aren't going to hang around a long time because they're working on a volume basis. At most you'll get two sentences out of them.
• 5) Grammatical errors It's rare to find a well-crafted SPAM comment; they're usually full of grammatical errors and typos.
• 6) Text scraped off your own site If the text of a comment looks familiar, it's probably SPAM and they probably scraped it right out of the post in question. In other words, they're adding insult to injury and plagiarising your own content.
• 7) Banal, meaningless comment If the text of the comment adds nothing to the discussion then you should suspect a SPAMMER at work. The ubiquitous `great post' is a dead giveaway.
• 8) Titles used as comments If the title of your post is used in the body of comment it's almost always SPAM, e.g. "I always 7 great places to register your rss feed so thanks"
• 9) Link going to sites requiring high traffic The nail in the coffin is always the link supplied with the comment. I've been plagued with casino gambling sites, real estate sites, and wholesale running shoes in the last month.

Bloggers work hard to write engaging copy and develop content to attract readers. Unfortunately, those very efforts make your blog attractive to the underbelly of the web too. As SPAM filters become more sophisticated, the tactics for leaving SPAM comments has changed. Knowing how to recognise them ensures you won't be encouraging their efforts or adding to their profitability.

[/color]The Take-Away[/color]
I've recently gone through my blog and realised some of the early adopters of the new SPAM techniques had found their way onto my blog. With extreme delight, I deleted them all. You might want to have a look at your own comment log and see if you were caught out, as well.

How do you spot a SPAM comment?

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So, how are you feeling about your privacy lately? The news is full security breaches and examples of how people's lives have been affected by social media. Most of these stories have not been of the `good news' variety. If you read my last post, you'll know information is continually being collected and indexed about you and your network. I'm not endorsing giving up on social media I'm out there every day enjoying the experience but I do have some suggestions on how you can preserve your privacy.

Every week we're being treated to a new story about how our privacy is being eroded. Even recreational users of social media have to take notice of stories like these:

[*]Anger After TwitPic Claims Rights to Uploaded Pictures

Facebook Applications Leak Users' Personal Data to Third Parties

Big Brother is Your Friend on Facebook

• Nielsen: U.S. Smartphone Users Concerned About Privacy and Location Data
• Your iPhone is Tracking Your Every Move

What can you do to protect your privacy?
Danah Boyd, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, a Visiting Researcher at Harvard University's Law School, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, said this in a paper she gave at the 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners:

"Privacy isn't about controlling functional access to content as much as knowing what to share when and how it will flow."

In a sea of self-proclaimed social media experts, Danah Boyd is the real deal. In light of her advice, these are my recommendations on how to enjoy your social media experience without compromising your privacy.

Behave as if the world is paying attention because it is
It's easy to forget who is in your network and who is paying attention especially if your connections have been built over a long period of time. Additionally, it's impossible to tell who is seeking you out your family, your neighbours, your friends, your work colleagues, your competition, and your enemies. Remember, we've been conditioned to build big networks.

Turn off GEO tracking on your electronic devices
Obviously, carrying a remote GPS device is going to be a dead give-away about where you are and what you're doing. You may not even realise your laptop or your phone is sending signals. Don't forget your car could also carry tracking devices, too.

Remove or deactivate social networking accounts you no longer use
If you're not actively using an account, there's no point in having delinquent profiles hanging around. They still contain a lot of information about you and help flesh out a better picture of who you are. Handy tools like KnowEm.com can help you find old accounts especially if you use a common user ID.

Refrain from using auto posting features
You may not realise you're giving out information if you're letting a social media tool automatically update or post. FourSquare is one area where people forget how much they're broadcasting.

Refrain from using cross channel integration
While it might seem like a good idea when you first set up a new profile, cross channel integration goes a long way to eroding your privacy. Often we behave differently in different channels. I recently discovered I had linked my Twitter account to my company profile on LinkedIn. I was horrified when I discovered a bunch of banal tweets displayed on the Global Copywriting page.

Become familiar with privacy settings
Privacy settings can be a red herring because they change so often. Still, it makes sense to have a look at each of your social networking sites and make sure the settings are what you want. Often, privacy policies change and so do your settings without notification.

My Personal Rules
In addition to the rules above, I try to adhere to some personal guidelines.

Don't post personal photos of anyone
I'm very uncomfortable by how quickly photos travel and how they can be used by anyone at any time. I don't post photos of people, except if it's attached to something I'm doing in my work. You will never see me post photos of children. While I know it's a great way to share with family and friends, it's nearly as easy to send out an email.

Never mention the names of my family
My family is not active in social media. While I might discuss something that happened at home, I never refer to them by name. It's not up to me to `out' them.

Do not discuss my whereabouts or advertise when I'm away from home
I really don't want the masses to know where I am or where I'm going to be. Again, if I'm doing something related to my professional life, then I'll post it. Otherwise, you won't hear about what coffee shop I'm sitting in or when I'm going on holiday. If it's a notable experience and suitable for mass consumption, I'll give a review after I'm back.

Don't reveal my birthdate
Your birthdate is the holy grail for anyone trying to find out more about you. When forced to give one as part of the sign-up procedure, I use a false date. There's absolutely no reason, legally, why any social networking channel needs to know your real birth date.

The Take-Away
Social networking has changed how we communicate with each other, how we work, and how we socialise. The information we post on social media lives in perpetuity and we do not own it once it's posted. Importantly, how the tools are integrated and the way the information flows between the channels impacts our privacy. Adhering to a few relatively simple guidelines will help ensure you only have good experiences in your online networking.

What do you do to protect your social media privacy?

Social Media and Privacy Presentation in Perth
I'll be giving a presentation about Social Media and Privacy in Perth on 27 May 2011 at the next Women in Technology, WA (WITWA) breakfast event. You don't have to be a member to attend. (Sorry guys, this one is a 'woman only' event.) For more information, visit the event calendar at WITWA.

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