Socialmedialand

Sitewire’s sister company, Agencyside, has asked me to speak again at their upcoming seminar, The 180 Series, on Tuesday, June 9th. I will be presenting “The Tools & Technologies that Drive Your Business Socially.”  It’s a slight update on the last presentation with a few more interactive and hands on elements.

Registration is only $49 and the information is going to be highly valuable and most importantly, actionable.

If you’re interested in Agencyside’s seminar series visit Agencyside or follow @Agencyside to keep up to date.

Title: Agencyside: 180Series
Location: MADCAP Theaters
Link out: Click here
Description: Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. The business world is abuzz over social media and how to use it to impact the bottom line. But for most that have tried, it turns out to be a bust.

The reason’s pretty simple: everyone is focused only on the tools and technologies, without thinking about why. In other words, what’s the outcome you want – specifically?

In just three hours time, we’ll show you how to think about what you want, whether it’s realistic for social media to deliver, and only then the tools that can help get you there.

Grow your business by gaining insights from social media experts and advertising agency executives who think about this every day. We’ll focus on brand names and small business examples, B2C and B2B companies.
Start Time: 8:30
Date: 2009-06-09
End Time: 11:00

Or, so says MediaPost News’ Joe Mandese in his post Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium, Report Likens Twitter To TiVo: More Hype Than Reality.

I’ll summarize the basic points of the article for you. Mandese says that although social media has “reached critical mass with 83% of the Internet population now using it – and more than half doing so on a regular basis” it isn’t turning into the marketing medium that all it’s media proponents claim it to be. He uses the following research from Knowledge Networks to assert that less than 5% of users “turn to social media for purchase decisions.”

He goes on to use this information to say that TV advertising and WOM are far more effective ways for brands to market to their customers.

I was going to leave a comment with my thoughts on this, but alas, you cannot comment unless you login and since I felt I had so much to say to refute this, I decided to write my own post.

Point #1: Research Issues

Knowledge Networks’ research looked at how many people regularly or sometimes “turn to” social media to make purchase decisions. I would say that there are two major flaws with the question itself that bias the outcome:

1. Who “turns to” anything for purchase decisions? I don’t ”turn to” TV when I want to go on a trip. I don’t think, “Hey, I’d love to go to Hawaii this summer, maybe I should watch hours of TV in hopes that a commercial appears giving me information on that.”
2. Regular consumers don’t know what “social media” is. If you ask them if they use social media to make purchase decisions they think about whether or not they went on Facebook to find information. They don’t realize that if they went to TripAdvisor.com - they were using social media. If they went to Priceline.com and read reviews of the hotel they were considering – they were using social media. If they wanted to buy a new computer and read an article in TechCrunch about it – they were using social media. They just don’t categorize it as that anymore because it’s so natural.

Point #2: TV and Word of Mouth

Knowledge Networks considers social media to be below TV and Word of Mouth in terms of value. But they’re not comparing apples to apples. Their question was “How often do you refer to social media Web sites or features as a resource for information, reviews, or recommendations when in the market for [category]?” So we need to talk about whether people turn to TV and Word of Mouth as resources to make purchase decisions to determine value in this case.

1. Like I mentioned above, you’re not going to “turn to” TV to make a purchase decision, TV is a discovery mechanism. You don’t go there when you’re looking for specific information to make a purchase. If you compare TV as a promotional, awareness increasing marketing tactic to whether people purposefully use social media to make a purchase decision – that’s not a fair comparison. Compare their effectiveness based on reach and awareness driving goals. And I’d argue when you have a social media site with millions to hundreds of millions of users and the ability to hypertarget your message the value of those impressions is actually pretty high, especially when you consider cost.
2. Social media is word of mouth. If my friend posts that she’s headed to Hawaii this summer on her Facebook and links to the review page of the hotel she picked – that’s word of mouth. If my coworker twitters about how he just bought the cool new phone and it’s actually poorly made and already breaking – that’s word of mouth. If you go on your blog and talk about how your trying to decide between a Mac and a PC and your friends all comment back – that’s word of mouth. All of that is actually social media but people probably wouldn’t categorize that as “turning to social media” they would categorize that as asking their friends.

Point #3: You’re Missing the Forrest For the Trees

This whole article is based on the premise that advertising will work the same in social media as it does everywhere else: as ads interrupting people’s experience as they try to connect with their friends online. The questions are all directed towards the effectiveness of advertising in that sense on these sites. But what about actually participating here?

The point isn’t how many people use one service or another, the point is that the people are demanding personal relationships. They want to get advice from people they trust. What if the brand itself is part of that circle of trust? This isn’t a shift from TV ads to Facebook ads – it’s a shift from bullhorn one-to-many advertising to one-on-one relationships. And they’re right – social media doesn’t have the reach that TV has. Yet. But do you really want to be the brand that gets left behind? Do you want to watch while your competitors get comfortable here in the early days and reap the benefits in the future when you’re playing catch up?

I guess those are questions each business will have to answer for themselves. What do you all think? Please feel free to leave me a comment – my comments are open, no login required.

I’d like to share some personal stories with you about how all this social media marketing has been working on me recently. I know I’m not a perfect case study because I work in this industry, but I think that makes it more amazing. I worked for a telemarketing fundraising group at my college for a short period of time. Ever since then,  I’ve found it to be hard to listen to any telemarketing pitches (though, everyone probably finds that hard.) My point is, in most channels, the more you know about the marketing strategy behind it, the less likely it is to work on you because you can see through it.

That’s why social media is different. There’s nothing to “see through.” When it’s done right, it’s honest, open and completely trustworthy. So here are some way’s it’s worked on me recently.

MoJo Yogurt:

I saw a tweet from @DowntownTempe on Feb 20th about MoJo Yogurt giving out free yogurt samples. So I retweeted it and got a few of my coworkers to go down there tocheck it out with me. It was delicious. Since then I’ve been back to MoJo a total of five times in the past three months. Keep in mind that before this I rarely, if ever, went out for frozen yogurt. In addition there are over three other places on the same street where you can get frozen yogurt. That’s a complete success story. Now for a scorecard:

What they did right:

• Used social channels (Twitter) to spread the word to an interested group – If I’m following @DowntownTempe I probably care about what’s happening in Tempe.
• Gave something away – I know the free sample concept has been around for awhile, but there is a reason it’s a classic.

What they could have done better:

• Used their own Twitter account to spread the word – There is an @MoJoYogurt but since it’s not location based, maybe the person running it didn’t know about the promotion at the Tempe store. Perhaps they could utilize a tool like Cotweet to activate tweeters from every location in order to make it more useful.
• Continued the relationship – Sure, they got me addicted, but when I got my free sample, I gave them my email and I haven’t heard from them since. They could have also searched for people who tweeted about them and followed me to continue to update me with specials occurring there seeing as that got me down there at least once and could work again.

Total score: B-

Rula Bula Irish Pub:

Again, I saw a tweet, this time from @RulaBula (honestly, it must have been a retweet-but I forget who it was from now.) It was about an upcoming Twappy Hour (like a tweet-up, or meet up of Twitterers, happy-hour style.) The tweet said if I sent a direct message to Rula Bula, I could get my name on the list and get free food and complimentary first round of drinks. As Rula Bula is one of my favorite bars, I followed them, retweeted the message and signed myself up. My coworker, Dustin, signed up after seeing my retweetand we both headed over. There was a decent group there and I think all in all, the following will grow and the popularity of those events will too. And although I might be a regular to the bar, Dustin had never been, and now he’s a big fan of the place. Since signing up for the event, I’ve seen several new tweets from them offering “no cover” to Twitter followers (which I’ve used) and letting me know what nights they have bands so I know when the best times will be.

What they did right:

• They capitalized on the exclusive nature of Twitter – People on Twitter like to feel like they have a special relationship with a brand or company, and they do. Rula Bula highlighted this by offering special events and deals to people following them on Twitter.
• Used Twitter to spread the word – The viral nature made it easy to spread around and for interested people to find out. Also, the requirement to send a direct message made it so you ended up following them. They didn’t ask for the follow outright, but they did get it. Tricky, and clever. Of course I could always unfollow – but why would I when they’re giving me so much value?
• They offered something for free – I’m a true believer in “free,” Chris Anderson converted me with his keynote at SXSW. I know this is the basic level of free, just the free trial model, but it’s still a good way to start.  
• They continued the relationship – They’re still giving me value, letting me know what’s going on over there.

What they could have done better:

• What about Facebook? – You can’t forget the big guys. Rula Bula is an Irish Pub, on Mill Ave, right next to Arizona State University. They get college student patrons in droves, and college kids are on Facebook more than they are on Twitter (yes, ok, a shift is happening and that segment is growing on Twitter, but it does not yet have the same market penetration as Facebook.) I told the Rula Bula tweeter the same thing, and hopefully they’ll utilize it more in the future. They have a Facebook fan page, but they should try the same types of tactics on Facebook as Twitter.
• Keeping all the employees in the loop. Every time I have been there, the person at the door didn’t know what I was talking about when I brought up the Twitter deals. I normally have to take out my phone and show them the message. A quick training with the servers and door staff to get them up to speed on the lingo and keeping them aware of the events will lead to a better experience. Other people might just give up if they mention the Twitter deal and get no response, leading them to a more negative experience of the brand’s presence on Twitter.

Total score: B+

Do you have any great experiences of social media campaigns that worked on you? Let’s share our best stories for a little inspiration.

In honor of today’s graduation ceremonies, I’d like to take a second to applaud ASU’s efforts in social media. I saw the following application come up in my Facebook feed recently and I’m seriously impressed with it.

(click the image to visit the application)

This is what social media should be all about. It’s not just fluff, and it’s not just a fad. Detractors try to make social media insignificant. They ask “Who wants to know all these details about your life?” or “Who has the time?”

ASU’s application is a solid answer to those doubts.  They know the devil’s in the details and they make it easy to organize those details because no one has the time.

What we are all dealing with in social media is a paradigm shift in the way we interact as a society. People who learn to use it well and adapt to this new space will be leagues ahead in terms of efficiency, information gathering and networking. With this application, ASU is helping prepare it’s students to succeed given the new playing field.

Here’s what’s going right here:

1. They’re going to the students where they’re at. ASU knows there are a healthy number of students already using Facebook, so an application here makes sense.

2. They’re providing value. This isn’t just a fan page for the sake of a fan page (Though I think a fan page is often a good first move for a brand getting involved on Facebook). The school took the time to evaluate pain points for the students – wanting to interact with teachers without giving them access to their profile, being able to connect with fellow students in a large lecture, etc – and gave them a viable solution.

3. They’re not fighting it. Too many schools try to cut social media out. You can’t access Facebook from the school library, Myspace is not allowed, etc. Employers try to do this too. They’re not helping anyone that way – they’re not teaching students how to use it properly, safely and effectively. They’re leaving them to figure it out on their own at home and giving them the impression that it’s not useful for anything but “personal use” or ”for fun.” That doesn’t show people how these new tools can completely alter the way they communicate and get work done and I think it does them a serious disservice.

3. They’re giving it the old college try. Sure it’s not perfect; there’s probably a lot more functions they could add and they could spend some time responding to the comments that have been written on the wall of the app already. But at least they’re going for it, they can always learn and adapt along the way. Most brands and organizations are too afraid to open up to the community and their hesitation is going to cost them.

Congratulations to ASU for getting it. I’m proud to call you my alma mater. And congratulations to today’s grads!

P.S: If you’re reading this and you happen to be at ASU working on this project, please contact me. I’d love to talk to you about this and where to go from here.

Targeting is critical for marketers. It costs money to get your message in front of potential customers, so the more certain you can be that they are in fact potential customers, the happier you are.

Right. We all know that. But what if I told you the traditional ways of targeting don’t work in social media?

Gasp!

But it’s true. Let’s review, there’s:

• Demographics – sex, age, ethnicity, etc
• Geographics – where you live, work, play
• Psychographics – generalized personalities based mainly on lifestyle ex: ’soccer moms,’ ‘c-suite execs,’ ‘vegan,’ etc
• Behavioral – you buy a cooking magazine so you’re likely to buy cookware and kitchen appliances
• Technographics - what kinds of activities you do online

All of these things make sense, and I don’t disagree that they can help you find the audience you’re looking for. But when you get into the social sphere, I think things can get a little more complicated. Right now, we’re talking about it the same way we always have been. Marketing Vox discussed the age demographics of Twitter, Facebook likes to point out that they’re not just for kids; everyone is still talking about the same classifications. Why?

Think about it. Here’s a sample persona:

Now, let’s say you’re a B2B service and you want to connect with Jeff via social media. You know that Facebook’s largest growing age population is 35+ and you know that Twitter’s got a very active older, techno-savvy, audience. Does either of those facts tell you which one you should use to connect with Jeff? I would say no.

It tells you that Jeff could be on Facebook and/or Twitter but what it doesn’t tell you is why he is on either network. I’d like to propose a new* way to target:

Purpose Based Targeting:

As it turns out, Jeff has a Facebook account and a Twitter account. He uses Facebook to get in touch with his old buddies from business school, keep up to date on his kids, and see pictures from family and friends. If those are the reasons why he uses Facebook, he probably isn’t looking to make connections with his B2B service provider in that space. On the other hand, he uses Twitter mainly from work and talks mostly about what’s going on in his industry and shares updates and news with his followers. This would be a great place to contact him with information about your B2B service because it’s aligned with his purpose in that space.

There’s been some research into this area – mainly in the B2B sector. The main designation is whether people are likely to use a network for business or personal purposes. I think this is a great starting point. But what about everybody else? We need more categories than just business vs. non-business. My personal theory is that younger people use social network sites to organize their whole lives, where older participants use it for limited updates on friends. I think there could be differences among people in different psychographic and technographic groups as well.

Until more research is done into those categorizations, each industry, or even every brand, needs to do its own research to know whether their customers are using social media (this is becoming more likely every day), where they are engaging, how they are using it and why they use the networks they do.

Thoughts? Let’s talk in the comments…

*Note: This is ‘new’ as in I haven’t heard it directly referenced and named. If you have, please share that in the comments because I’d love to read more on the subject.

Photo credit: cliff1066 (Flickr)

I normally use Tweetdeck, so I didn’t even notice the change in Twitter’s UI until (ironically) people I follow started tweeting about it.

Twitter Integrated Search Functionality

Assuming you’re like me, you might not have even seen this yet so I’ll explain. Twitter has updated the side bar navigation to embed a search box and the trending topics list right there on your profile. The search results show up on your profile as well; they come up where your feed normally is. There’s an additional option to save that search – all your saved searches will appear as shortcuts under the search bar, above the trending topics.

Everyone is talking about how cool it is. And it is cool. But why? Why did Twitter spend the time to take the same basic functionality from http://search.twitter.com and integrate it into your profile? Here are my two possible theories (based on my thoughts alone):

Facts

Twitter is extremely popular. Their popularity has been growing exponentially in the last few months alone, and if I remember correctly (without double checking my facts) they’ve grown 1000% in the last year.

All those growth and popularity numbers are based on visits to the site, and they know that as many people as visit the site there are twice as many (probably, maybe more) who use applications like TweetDeck, Twitterrific or Twhirl instead of visiting Twitter.com.

People who use Twitter regularly know that they can often get updated news from Twitter before it hits anywhere else (think attacks in Dubai and the crash in the Hudson.)

Twitter is beginning to feel pressure to come up with an effective revenue model. Sure they’ve got venture capitalists. Sure they’re not quite desperate for a way to find money. But they must be thinking about it on a regular basis.

Conclusion #1

The update to the UI is a bid to make visiting Twitter.com more valuable than using services like TweetDeck, etc. If they make it so that you’d rather visit the actual site, their traffic numbers go up. If their traffic numbers go up…they could attempt an ad-based revenue model a la Facebook or Myspace.

I think it’s obvious that they are trying to increase the amount of people who use the site versus third party apps by making the site more appealing and easy to use. As for why they’re doing that, I’m just speculating. Twitter is in a unique position because their initial openness with their API (which everyone loves) has made it so that everyone else is able to capitalize and build on Twitter’s functionality and the result is that you don’t have to go to Twitter.com to use Twitter. 

The other networks didn’t start that way, which is why they can support advertising on their sites. For example, you have to go to Facebook.com to really be able to use it. Sure you can do limited things from other places, but you’re still probably going to go to the actual Web site most of the time; meaning there will be impressions for advertisers to buy. Twitter is the opposite. I get more functionality everywhere else and I only need to go to actual Web site for limited things – like checking on my followers and following people back.

What’s Next

I think we’re going to start seeing more updates to the Twitter UI to make it as robust as other services. As it is right now, this update doesn’t even come close to challenging TweetDeck or Twitterific for their users. From Tweetdeck, I can have saved searches, trending topics, AND I can organize my feed by groups, use built in URL shorteners, and share pictures and videos using Twitpic and 12seconds, all from the same interface. Until Twitter can do that, I don’t think they’re going to make a significant dent in the amount of people using third party apps.

Conclusion #2

My other theory is that Twitter is looking to get a piece of the Google pie. Since Twitter is quick and viral, it’s an effective way to get news out and get it spread to millions of people. The update to the UI was based solely on search capability and since Twitter lets you save a search, and create a feed of that search – you have instant access to that information and you can also export and display those results anywhere. For example, CNN could create a tip line where, if you include the hashtag #cnntip, it shows up in an “Twitter updates” box on their homepage. Of course that could be easily hijacked, so there are some logistics to work out. But imagine if the Twitpic of flight 1549 going down in the Hudson had been tagged with that – it would have gotten into mainstream news that much quicker.

This theory also explains why trending search terms were highlighted – to try to increase the benefit of the viral side of Twitter. If a topic looks interesting, you might search for it as well, and then if you retweet the news you find you’re increasing the volume of that same topic, continuing the trend. This would make Twitter a go-to place for news and information; like a leaner version of Digg with the search capability of Google delivered in a real-time updated feed.

What’s Next

Like I said, the logistics included in this are a little hairy, so I think we’ll see Twitter trying to work some of that out. Hashtags will get updated – they’ll become links in the tweets on Twitter (they already are on TweetDeck and other apps.) We might see a more “homepage” like entry portal to Twitter with trending topics and news displayed (making it easy to retweet…) Basically anything that will increase the viral nature of Twitter and help to classify tweets into topics and categories are activities that would support this theory.

In reality, these theories aren’t necessarily exclusive; a mix of both could be closer to the truth than either one. What do you think? Disagree with my conclusion, or have your own take? Leave me a comment!

Update: I saw this post on the possibility of Twitter using the tip link space for advertising in the future…hmm..

This is a topic that has come up in my own work recently:

In any given social media account; who are you?

It seems like a silly question but if you think about it, it’s critical. If you’re the person with the responsibility to be the personal voice of a company or brand, then who are you really? Are you still John Smith, a PR rep at XYZ corp, or are you XYZ corp, or are you some fictional manifestation of XYZ corp?

I read an interesting take about personalities on Twitter by Shea Beck last week and some musings by popular industry bloggers, like Jeremiah Owyang, regarding the level of personal content in their tweets. It all got me thinking about online identity in greater detail.

[Note: while most of the inspiration for this post comes from Twitter and the account setup on that network, keep in mind that it can apply anywhere: branded Facebook fan pages, brand accounts on popular forums, corporate blogs, anywhere where you are talking in a personal capacity on behalf of a brand or on behalf of your personal brand.]

There are several models for the branded online personality:

- Person first, brand second. This would be an account where the avatar is the actual person, the name includes the person’s name and then the bio or second half of the user name is the brand.

- Brand first, person second. In this case the avatar would be the logo, the profile name is the brand and somewhere in the bio it mentions who the actual person is that is responding from the account.

- Brand only. This is when the whole thing is branded and there is no mention of an actual person.

- Brand mascot. An account where a fictional personality represents the brand, they’re the avatar, the account name and whoever is writing is pretending to be that person. Jack from Jack in the Box is a great example of this.

So what model works best? I think it varies depending on the brand. But the rule on how to decide what is right for your brand never changes: Choose the one that will make your purpose clear to the community. By reading your name and/or profile I should get a good idea of what being friends with you means. If you present yourself as an individual person who is going to share interesting information and then I follow you and find out it’s all branded messaging, that’s not going to make me happy. At the same time if I follow a brand and get a bunch of personal messages or my feed is full of personal photo albums, I’m going to be pretty confused.

How you clarify your online identity (whether that be for a brand or for yourself):

1. Identify the purpose of the account. Is it for keeping up with friends, talking about business, talking about a particular business, or a mix of several things.

2. Think about how to describe that purpose using the bio/profile picture/any other fields available. Is it about you or the brand? Is about your personal life or professional career? If it’s more than one thing, highlight the main objective and describe the secondary objective later.

Disclaimer: Just because you create a separate business/brand account as well as a personal one doesn’t mean you can say whatever you like in the personal one and think that it’s anonymous (it’s not – even if you try to make it that way, there’s a very good chance it will somehow come back around to you.) You still have to utilize basic social skills.

This is my recipe for online identity, what do you think? How should we present our identity online in situations where we may be representing more than just our personal selves?

Sitewire’s sister company, Agencyside, has asked me to speak at their upcoming seminar on Monday, April 27th. I will be presenting “Tactics and Tools: How to implement social media strategies for your clients” along with my coworker, Dustin. I’m really excited about it- we have a pretty great deck put together with a lot of real actionable items you can take home and use.

It may be too late to sign up for this seminar, but webcasts of each session will be posted online after the fact. I’ll update you with more information on that in the next week because I think a lot of valuable content is going to come out of this event. It’s mainly geared towards marketing and PR professionals/agencies but I know my session, and likely several others, will be useful to a broader audience.

If you’re interested in Agencyside’s seminar series, another event is tentatively planned for May. Visit Agencyside or follow @Agencyside to keep up to date.

Title: @SocialMedia seminar (Agencyside)
Location: Tempe Mission Palms
Link out: Agencyside
Description: Using social media in meaningful ways for your clients and your agency

Start Date: 2009-04-27
End Date: 2009-04-27

 Twitter, meet paid advertising. Paid advertising, Twitter.

Twoogel launched today – it’s a Google powered search engine for Twitter, complete with, you guessed it, PPC ads provided by Google.

( @Twoogle is a third party site that’s not directly affiliated with either Google or Twitter – simply using the technology provided by both to create an integrated search experience.)

The mix of paid advertising with Twitter search results is interesting. Seach.twitter.com doesn’t include paid ads to Web sites or other landing pages – just search results full of tweets. It’s possible that if a page full of positive tweets about your company comes up in search results, and next to it there’s a paid advertisement directing people to your landing page for a free trail or coupon or whatever, they might be more inclined to click on that ad secure in the knowledge that other Twitterites seem to like you. At the same time, a page full of negative tweets might be just as equally detrimental.

Users may have a different reaction to it – why use Twoogle when other twitter search engines provide social elements (trending topics, tag clouds, sentiment, etc) and all Twoogle has are ads? Ads aren’t a big attraction for users. I think Twoogle will have to step up in those areas in order to get a significant amount of search traffic in order to support their paid ad model.

Time will tell whether a service like this takes off with users or not, but in a way it’s a logical extension of the same old “how will Twitter make money” argument. One of the ideas put forward has been including paid advertising space on the network, on search results, on profiles, anywhere. It seems that instead of waiting for Twitter to make a move like this on their own, someone else has harnessed the power of Twitter with the money making ability of Google ads and made their own search engine.

I’d predict that if it does take off, either Google or Twitter (or both) will take notice and integrate a similar idea into their own search sites.

Thoughts? Like it, don’t like it, don’t care? Leave a comment and let me know!

As Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets gain popularity among the mainstream public it appears that some people aren’t entirely clear on the codes of conduct we have here in Socialmedialand. A recent event involving some people at work and our vendors led me to think it might be valuable to write a quick guide on manners to help everyone out.

Act Like You Would In Real Life

I was going to make a list of things to keep in mind but I really think that one thing covers it. If you were in a room full of people, good friends, acquaintances, business associates and a few people you hadn’t met yet – what would you say? Better yet, what would you literally announce to the room? What if you knew everyone there would have a historical transcript of everything you said, and anyone who joined the party later could see the transcript of what you’d said earlier. Then what would you say?

Would you tell your new boss that you will hate the work at that company?

Would you talk about an ongoing trial that you’re involved in?

Would you mention that vacation you took while you were ’having a family emergency’?

Would you say rude things about a city, your boss, your client, your {fill in the blank}?

Would you announce sensitive information about pregnancies, engagements, buying a house, or taking a new job without telling the people involved first?

No. you wouldn’t. So why would you say those things in a very public, permanent place? It doesn’t make sense. I wrote a previous post about being kind to others online – treating them how you’d like to be treated. Not saying anything at all unless you can say something nice. Now it’s time to take that a little further.

You’re online identity is no longer completely separated from your real identity. Like I’ve said before, privacy is now a tricky thing. The days of obscure AIM screen names are over. Even if you use an obscure word jumble as your Twitter ID or email address - it’s probably tied to your Facebook or LinkedIn which uses your real name – and clearly leads straight back to you.

So it’s time for another pearl of wisdom from our childhood:

Be Yourself

Don’t think you can say things online and they’ll disappear into cyberspace like a puff of smoke. Your words have meaning and they are linked to you. You don’t have to over-edit yourself; you can say how you feel about things, as long as you can take responsibility for having said them. Recognize that you are the same person online and offline and act accordingly and there shouldn’t be any more problems.

If you have any questions about specific instances – leave me a comment. It’ll be like a mini ”Ask Ms. Social Media Manners” column.

Photo credit: Someecards