I created this five-part model - the ABC’s of Social Media - to simplify your social media efforts. Many folks come to social media and attempt to short-circuit the process by over-automating, over-broadcasting, over-delegating and miss out the vital component of connecting, engaging and building relationships.

Once you’ve confirmed your target market uses Facebook and Twitter, and you’re happy with your brand, messaging and systems for capturing leads, etc., here’s how the ABC system works:

Automate

First, set up systems to automate your broadcasts, feeds, updates, content. On Twitter, this could be using Twitterfeed to automatically post your blog feed as tweets. To pre-schedule tweets, use TweetLater and/or Hootsuite.

To update multiple social media sites, including Twitter, your Facebook personal profile, multiple Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and many more, Ping.fm works extremely well. To pre-schedule updates to multiple social sites, the best choice is HootSuite > Ping.fm.

Import your blog post on Facebook using the Notes app and/or the Networked Blogs app.

Aggregate all your social feeds into FriendFeed and add the FriendFeed app to your Facebook Profile.

There are many more ways to automate; these are a great start. However, I do recommend not over-automating. Pre-scheduling and auto-broadcasting are great to ensure you at least have some content going out daily. But you’ll also want to generate real-time content/broadcasts too.

Broadcast

Broadcasts are what I call regular tweets (as opposed to @ replies), Facebook status updates, posts on Facebook, blog posts and more. In fact, any way of pushing your message “out there.” This could be seen as more traditional “push marketing” though you’re not being pushy, per se. It’s important to broadcast your content and, in fact, broadcast others’ content in the form of retweets, favorites, social bookmarks and the Links app on Facebook.

Now the challenge with many businesses using social media is they stop at “B” - in other words, they just repeat the cycle of automate and broadcast, automate and broadcast. It’s hard to know who’s behind the Twitter account or Facebook page. It’s all about pushing content and there’s hardly any engagement. So the third step is vital to your success in social media:

Connect

On Twitter, this is the art of joining, initiating and responding to conversations via @ replies. Using popular third party clients like Tweetdeck, Twhirl or Seesmic Desktop, you can easily track and respond to @yourname mentions.

On Facebook, create Friend Lists with your key contacts, drag that friend list to the top of your News Feed and now that’s your default view [see screenshot to the right]. Then, even in just a few minutes a day on Facebook, you can easily connect by commenting appropriately.

Acknowledge your friends’ birthdays on both Facebook and Twitter. [On Facebook, all your friends' upcoming birthdays are listed on your Home Page on the right; you can also receive a weekly list of upcoming birthdays via regular email: click Settings > Account Settings > Notifications > under the first segment (Facebook) click Show More > make sure "Has a birthday coming up" is turned ON.]

Look for other occasions to celebrate and acknowledge. And, look for ways to introduce and promote others, compliment, add value.

Subscribe to a number of popular blogs and regularly post your comments. When writing your own blog posts, encourage your readers to comment by asking stimulating questions.

Delegate

If you’re serious about integrating social media into your marketing efforts, before long you simply cannot manage everything yourself. Depending on the size of your company, you may well have a member of staff who’s sole responsibility is to be the voice and face of the company, often called a “brandividual.”

Or, you may choose to hire a competent, trained VA (Virtual Assistant) or social networking assistant - at least to help set up and manage the basics. I usually recommend you do not delegate your voice, though most of us know some celebrities have “ghost tweeters!” [There are many sources to find good VAs, including on Twitter via the directory Twellow.com - that way you can find, follow and monitor their style before even contacting them.]

One major task you can delegate is to track and monitor your reputation by setting up Google alerts and tweet alerts (via TweetBeep and/or TweetLater which is a suite of helpful Twitter tools). Look for your evangelists who are always singing your praises so you can connect, empower and incentivize them more. And, also look for negative activity that needs to be responded to and ideally nipped in the bud. [The best book on reputation management is Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.]

Evaluate

As quickly as you set up your social media systems, something new comes along or the big sites introduce new features. Facebook are constantly adding a tweak here and there, sometimes minor but often major. It’s important you stay informed and regularly evaluate how your systems are working for you. Are you meeting your objectives? Are you getting a good ROI (return on investment) and ROT (return on time). Have you thoroughly researched where your target market hang out most and are you reaching them effectively? How can you think outside the box, get more creative and innovative to stay ahead of the curve?

Let me know your thoughts on my ABC’s of Social Media model - did I miss anything critical? Does it help you better understand how you can effectively use the giants like Facebook and Twitter? Please do retweet this post too, assuming you found it valuable!

Today is a BIG day: a seven feet tall day! My giant friend, Dave Lakhani, releases his book How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying (And How To Sell Even More When They Are).

This book is a powerful step-by-step guide to generating significantly more sales using many proven techniques, along with tapping into the power of social media, how to be seen to sell, and how to build lasting, prosperous relationships!

I am thrilled and honored to be one of only four contributing authors. My chapter is called, How To Effectively Use Facebook To Find Your Ideal Work, Build Your Brand, and Increase Your Sales.

Hop over to Dave’s book site now and be sure to first order your copy of this awesome new book today. And then enter your name, email address and receipt number on Dave’s amazing bonuses page for lots of free goodies and plenty chances to win BIG!

Today, Dave will be randomly choosing winners each hour to receive free cameras, iPods, products, and private consultations. Plus, three peeps will win Dave’s $10k Grand Prize of a one day in person consultation to transform your business. Whew, that rocks! As the saying goes, you have to be IN to WIN!

As my own special bonus gift, here’s another super-duper special opportunity for you: a chance to WIN a scholarship to attend my Fast Track to Social Marketing Mastery program! (Worth $5k).

It’s an intense six-week program, very limited in size, typically only available via invitation. (See a quick overview of Social Marketing Mastery here). The next program is coming up fast on June 11th. We meet for six consecutive weeks via my private webinar room, plus one-on-one time with me to help you get big and go viral using social media!

Here’s how to enter:

It’s real simple; just write a comment here on this blog post (or in the comments section below if you’re reading this inside Facebook) telling me these THREE things:

1. Where you’re feeling stuck with Facebook/Twitter/social media.
2. How you think your business would benefit most from a rapid immersion in high-level social marketing training.
3. Why I should pick you as the winner of this scholarship.

That’s it! I’ll choose a winner by midnight tonight (June 9th) and will contact you via email. (I will be verifying with Dave that you got a copy of his book!)

NOTE: if you wish your comment/entry to remain private, please include the words “don’t publish” and I will read your comment offline and it won’t be published. (Of course, this only applies on my blog, not on Facebook).

Good luck!! Now, STEP #1: go get your copy of How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying FIRST!

I recently dealt with an unfortunate situation where one of my tweets was retweeted with the link replaced by the retweeter, thus implying I was endorsing his site (otherwise known as "retweet hijacking.") You may have read my post (which I have since taken down - read on to find out why.)

My first reaction was one of utter disbelief. How someone could so openly "hijack" a tweet and infer my endorsement without anyone noticing, I don’t know. Maybe it happens more often than I realized; this was my first experience - I’d never heard of it before.

I figured the best way to approach this situation was via DM (direct message), however - long story short - the matter seemed to get out of hand with a barrage of unpleasant DM’s and @ messages from the hijacker directed to me; I then chose to write a blog post about what happened.

I also chose to identify the tweet hijacker by name. This caused further controversy in the Twitterverse; over 60 comments were left on my post and though 90% of my community seemed to support the decision to out the hijacker, 10% didn’t. Fair enough.

My intent in highlighting this incident was to educate others as to some unethical practices going on in Twitter and to rally support in not allowing this kind of behavior.

Could I have achieved my objective without naming names? Yes. Would I have made different choices in retrospect? Possibly. The way I see it is this: Twitter is already an open system; we are all "out" whether we realize it or not.

It transpired that the person tweeting was a hired webmaster - to be the voice of a well-known, reputable company (I’ve since discovered).

A loyal customer got wind of the hijacking situation and alerted the company. The Assistant Vice President and President of the company contacted me directly. I ended up having a pleasant phone conversation with the President tonight. He was very apologetic, courteous and kind. I have a much better understanding for this company, their outreach and normal business practices.

As a gesture of goodwill, I assured the President I would edit my blog post to exclude his company’s name; however, I chose to take the entire post and all comments down instead. I’m grateful to all commenters who took the time to read my post and provide their valuable contribution.

What can we learn from this situation? Here’s what I believe:

1. One very important lesson from this scenario is how vital it is to properly assess who is the voice and face of your company.
2. Reputations need to be monitored rigorously by everyone from the solopreneur to Fortune 500 companies. (For the best book on managing - and repairing - reputations, see Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.)
3. When there is a situation to deal with, do so quickly, courteously and effectively.

What are your thoughts? How would you react to someone intentionally hijacking/misrepresenting your tweets… or any message, for that matter? Do you think business best practices transcend all mediums and, if so, how do we uphold those practices in new media?

[This post and all 60 comments have been removed by the author]

I’ve been eager for Oprah to join the Twitterverse for some time. As you can see by this fun comic strip I made back on September 24, 2008, my cartoon self was enthusiastically encouraging cartoon Oprah to join Facebook and Twitter!!

Yesterday on the Oprah and Friends show, even with celeb guest Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) and Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams (@ev), Oprah seemed to be getting to grips with what exactly Twitter is, how to use it, why anyone would want such a large following (one million plus) and what to say! But, I do believe she’s starting to catch the vision.

Here’s the thing: can you imagine the even bigger difference we can make on the planet individually and collectively when more and more visionaries, enlightened leaders and luminaries fully integrate the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter?!

On Monday, I had the absolute privilege of leading a social media webinar for the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC), with cofounders and members including Jack Canfield, Marie Diamond, DC Cordova, John Assaraf, Raymond Aaron, Hale Dwoskin, Ivan Misner, Donna Steinhorn, Jim Bunch, and many more. I am deeply moved at the power of what I’m starting to call Conscious Social Media and Mindful Tweeting.

See, everything matters. Everything counts. It’s all energy. It’s the ripple effect, or the BUTTERFLY EFFECT.

"The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different." [From Wikipedia]

What if more people on Twitter and Facebook really stopped to think about their messages and how much impact even one tweet or Facebook wall post, for example, can make to a person’s life?

I actually believe having a large following — online or offline, but particularly through social media due to the rapid uptake — is a big responsibility. But not responsibility from a point of burden, but of joy and purpose. Surely we can use these mediums to create more good.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below: do you think social media is helping to transform the world? To raise the consciousness of the planet? Do you think those who are already global leaders and have large followings outside of social media have a greater responsibility when joining sites like Twitter? Do you have any wonderful stories to share of how something has touched your life through social media?

I wanted to give you a glimpse behind the curtains of my business. First, I have to say I feel extremely blessed to be so supported in my community. I’m deeply grateful for all the amazing connections I’ve made over the past two years through Facebook and Twitter.

My business is absolutely exploding through the roof these days. I have a competent team of assistants and project managers. I’m in two powerful masterminds. I have mentors, advisors and role models. Plus, I recently hired a systems expert to help streamline all my processes this year.

And, some time ago, I had the idea to start an international association for social media specialists and to offer certification training programs for both coaches / consultants / marketers and for virtual assistants. I kept waiting for my ducks to be in a row, for everything to be perfect. But that day never comes. As a recovering perfectionist, I figured it was time to take imperfect action.

So, I recently quietly opened up MentorWithMari.com - my new protege program to certify social marketing specialists. The response has been astounding. Truly astounding.

I’m also about to embark on an intense two month speaking tour in the US and UK. I am so honored to speak on the stages of such accomplished leaders as Fabienne Fredrickson, Adam Urbanski, James Malinchak, Bernadette Doyle (in Belfast, Ireland!), Terry Wygal, Mike Lathigee, and more in the fall - Arielle Ford, Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy and more. [See my public calendar of events here.]

(I should also mention part of my two months on the road includes a wonderful five-day cruise to Mexico with my Mastermind partners!)

[Update from Mari: due to my calendar of events and speaking schedule being uber squeezed, I made the bittersweet decision not to go on the mastermind cruise. I need this one week to laser focus on all the moving parts of my business, my team, and my new systems. I may take my whole team on a cruise in the fall, then!!]

Meantime, for many months, I had this week blocked off for a special retreat for myself, my team and my systems specialist to laser focus on tightening up all my company processes.

So, in order to truly focus, I’m also going to "go dark" on Twitter and Facebook. This will be a first for me in about two years.

[Update from Mari: Ha! Now I see where the misunderstanding came from - many people have been saying to me, "Mari, I thought you were retiring for two years?!" Um, what I mean was I've never once unplugged from Twitter or Facebook in the past two years!! And it was only ONE week that I was unplugging. I lasted a whole 72 hours, you know!]

I have to say, I have a sense of discomfort about unplugging! It’ll be an interesting experiment. But a very worthy and important one.

See, it really troubles me when an important email goes unanswered or direct messages are missed because I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to personally respond to all (even though one of my assistants spends four hours a day reading, managing and replying to much of my email for me).

It bothers me when I’m unable to reply to all @ messages that so many of my wonderful followers on Twitter send to me, or when I’m unable to reply to each friend who emails me on Facebook or writes on my wall… because there are just not enough hours in the day.

Such is the nature of social media. Suddenly, we open ourselves up to a multitude of touch points. There is a new expectation of availability. I love to engage and connect and I know you do too. Yet, where do you draw the line between being available and making sure you have enough focus time and personal time?

In any case, just know that if you’ve ever tried to contact me for any reason through any medium - whether Twitter, Facebook, regular email, Skype or phone - and I have not gotten back to you in a timely manner, it’s not personal. There’s a good chance I’ve read your message but it’s been very late at night or I’m rushing to a commitment so haven’t been able to reply.

Over the coming weeks and months, my systems will be so much more robust that I’ll be able to provide even better service to both my clients and community at large.

I’m happy to share with you what new systems I put in place over the coming weeks as a result of my retreat.

How about you? What do you find most overwhelming about managing a growing business? Are your follow-up systems solid? Where do you most need support? Though social media may have increased your business, have you still been able to maintain plenty time for your personal life? I’d love to know! Please share below:

Online social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube allow us to expand our community exponentially… without ever leaving the comfort of our home offices.

However, to heighten and accelerate your success, attending live events is equally important. You get to see and be seen. You’ll have meaningful conversations in person. You take photographs and upload them to Facebook, Flickr, Twitpic. Of course, you get to learn valuable tools, strategies and secrets to success.

And, you get to meet some of the most amazing people you may never have been able to connect with otherwise… in person. [Pic R: Les Brown & Mari Smith. I had the honor of sharing the stage with Les Brown at SANG] [Pic below: Stacey Hylen, Dorcy Russell, Yanik Silver, Mari Smith - all dressed up for Yanik's Underground5 Bond night!]

By first connecting with new people via online social networks, it’s easy to create what I call "virtual rapport." Oftentimes, you may feel like you have an incredibly close relationship with a social networking friend… all that remains is to meet them in person and it’s like you’ve known each other for years!

Or, conversely, what’s happened to me a few times too is I have a certain picture in my mind’s eye of how I think someone is like in real life. Then I meet them face to face and there’s this instant chemistry. I suddenly morph the image of who I thought the person was into who they really are, and I’m pleasantly and warmly surprised.

This anchors my point that you simply cannot afford not to attend live events. All the online social networking in the world (even including video conferencing) will never replace face-to-face networking. Everyone has an energy field and you cannot get a true sense of that without physically being in their presence.

I absolutely love to attend, support and speak at live events; personal and professional growth seminars have been a passion of mine for decades. See my calendar of upcoming public events here.

Just in the past couple months, I’ve attended and/or spoken at these amazing events:

• Affiliate Summit West 2009
• David Neagle’s Million Dollar Achievement Award Ceremony
• Your Best Year Yet
• Christian Mickelsen’s Coaching Business Empire
• Conscious Entrepreneur Experience
• Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar 5
• SANG: Speakers and Authors Networking Group [link goes to my blog post with Twitter ID's of attendees!]
• Alex Mandossian’s TeleSeminar Secrets Reunion [page to follow with Twitter ID's of attendees]

I can honestly say attending a variety of events and speaking at events about Facebook/Twitter/social media this past year or so has lead to more and more consulting, training and speaking contracts! Love that.

What events will you be attending this year? What has been your most enjoyable event to date? Do you attend Tweetups in your area? If not, would you consider organizing/hosting one?! Do you think online social networking can ever replace live events? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

Ah, to follow or not to follow - that is the question. But to AUTO follow or not to auto follow - that is a whole other question! And to AUTO DM?! Eek.

I received this DM recently from a Twitter bud:

“Please post me a link to something that answers the etiquette of the autofollow? Plus the rationale. I do without  knowing why.”

First, regards following, my policy from day one is to follow everyone back. Here are my two primary reasons why:

1. Following those peeps back on Twitter who follow you says “hey, thanks for caring about what I have to say… I also care about what you have to say.”
2. When both parties follow each other, you now have the ability to Direct Message (DM) - which is a private exchange between you and the other person and does not go out in the public Twitter stream.

I always like to say, “You never know when your next $100k client wants to DM you.” Granted there are other ways of reaching you - but Twitter is just SO darn efficient. And why create barriers for contact? I’ve made a LOT of lucrative deals as a direct result of having my DM feature decidedly ON!

Autofollow?

Regards automatically following those folks back who follow you: I first got started on Twitter in summer of 2007 and I was merrily building my following to about 7,000 a year later. I always manually followed back and didn’t auto DM. Then my velocity cranked up and I simply couldn’t keep up with following back.

So, I now automatically follow back using @jesse’s platform http://socialtoo.com. I enjoy the extra features Jesse has, including the anti-spam setting - where the system unfollows anyone who unfollows you within x days. (One hallmark of a spammer is to follow 2000 people then when you follow them back, they unfollow you so they can go follow more peeps!)

Auto DM?

At first, I also chose to auto-DM all peeps I followed. I experimented with a simple invitation to access my 7 Day Facebook Marketing Tips with a link to my blog. Then I nixed that as I grew weary of receiving links myself.

Next, I used a message that encouraged my followers to let me know if they had any questions about Facebook and Twitter - oops, opened the floodgates on that one and couldn’t keep up.

Then I just included a friendly message that merges in the first name field, e.g. “Greetings Roberta! It’s great to meet you in Twitterland.” But even that was starting to feel mechanical and inauthentic as I, again, received similar auto messages myself.

Not only that, it’s hard to strip out the bona fide DMs from all the auto-junk. I have my DM’s coming into my email and one of my VA’s filters them to identify important/urgent messages.

I’ve now opted out of of incoming and outgoing AUTO DMs via http://tweetlater.com and http://socialtoo.com. [However, I gotta share - check out http://tweetlater.com's suite of features on their paid version, including ability to send DMs to all followers.]

I’m not here to tell you what to do - it’s all a personal choice. I’m just sharing my experience!

What do you think? Do you autofollow everyone? If not, why not? Do you include an auto DM? I’d love to know what results you’ve achieved with the auto DMs - I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise on this one! lol.

BREAKING: UPDATE: February 17, 2009, 11:20 PM Pacific

I just logged into Facebook and they have this update posted right there on the Home Page announcing they’ve decided to revert back to the previous Terms of Use while they “resolve the issues that people have raised”:

Way to go Facebook members for speaking out and being heard. Hopefully we’ll see more clearly worded TOS.

[Original post follows]

I’ve been watching the hoopla and panic on the web and in the Twitterverse today regards Facebook’s recently (slightly) revised Terms of Use.

The main change folks are reacting to is the perception that everything you load to Facebook suddenly belongs to Facebook. Not so.

The moment you sign up for an account on Facebook, you ARE agreeing to their Terms of Use, which includes a clause that you grant Facebook a license to use your content.

Yes, the license is “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide (with the right to sublicense).” Phew, we can see why so many members are upset because of all the implications and permutations this clause could mean.

And, yes, it does seem unfair to have members sign up for a service under one set of Terms and then to change them sitewide, even if moderately. As Facebook’s Corporate Counsel for Commercial Transactions, Suzie White, explained Facebook are working on consolidating their Terms.

Interestingly enough, I raised this very issue last month when I attended the Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas where one of the panels addressed legal matters in social media. Slides included screenshots of the TOS of giants like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube etc.

At Q&A time, I got up to ask a question on the mic, posed to one of the attorneys, specifically about Facebook’s Terms of Use - I asked if we are to interpret the TOS literally, Facebook are at complete liberty to do as they please with all users’ content.

Indeed, the attorney confirmed this to be the case. BUT, he quickly added words to the effect of: Facebook would be HIGHLY unlikely to ever utilize member content in any way inappropriate such that it would jeopardize the member experience of trust, safety and privacy. (Otherwise, they might just have a class action on their hands, yes?!)

See Facebook CEO and Founder, Mark Zuckerberg response to the outcry today: On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information.

Excerpts:

Here’s the way I look at it:

1.   Much as I’m one of Facebook’s biggest evangelists and I believe they’re here for the long haul, we have to remember there was life before Facebook. Sure it’s great to share a ton of stuff with friends, family, clients, peers around the world. But caveat emptor. Don’t be sharing anything anywhere online that you wouldn’t want exposed publicly in some way. My rule of thumb on Facebook, Twitter and beyond is: “Would I be cool with this showing up on the front page of the New York Times, found in a Google search or seen by my grandchildren in a couple decades’ time??” If ever the answer is no, the data simply does not go online.

2.   With all due respect to many of my artist and creative friends in the Facebook community, I really feel photos of your artwork is safe on Facebook. It’s highly unlikely you’d walk into someone’s house one day and see a big coffee table book with your artwork published by Facebook. Believe it or not, Facebook really do care about their members and wouldn’t intentionally do something to upset or provoke their users. Adding a watermark to each image may help you feel safer. DISCLAIMER: I’m not an attorney, I’m not giving legal advice here at all - it’s important always to do your own due diligence.

3.   For me, all the content I load to Facebook is for public display anyway: I love it that my photos are propagated around the platform in the feeds. I take photos and load them to Facebook on purpose for more visibility. I love it that my blog posts import as Notes and can be shared around Facebook and commented on. And, all my public videos are on YouTube and imported into Facebook. My status updates, wall posts and comments are all strategically written. I *want* droves of people to be looking at my content - and I invite anyone using Facebook for business networking to consider this strategy too.

4.   Another thing, though I share a ton of content online for free, I’m also monetizing my intellectual property with my consulting services, products and training. I believe it is simply not possible to give away all your knowledge. And I highly doubt a third party giant like Facebook would be trying to profit from your IP. Though I don’t doubt they’ll use our data for market research purposes. Again, I’m cool with that as I’m sharing my data on Facebook of my own volition.

Bottom line, I really
encourage the Facebook TOS naysayers to put things in perspective. Facebook are listening. Mark Zuckerberg responded today. He’s had flack before (Beacon!) and has publicly apologized and put steps in place to rectify sticky situations in the past.

Facebook actually consider themselves still a startup! (Even at five years old and 165 million+ active users!) Just shows how much further they plan to go - I do know their #1 focus is growth.

What are your thoughts? Are you more reticent now about using Facebook? Do you think the revised TOS are harsh? How so? Add your comments below.

Related Posts:

• Facebook: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit - Mashable.com
• Facebook: Relax, we won’t sell your photos - Cnet News
• Facebook: “We have never claimed ownership” of members’ content - The Standard
• Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information - The New York Times
• Facebook terms of service compared with MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter - Amanda French
• Facebook Clarifies Terms Of Service: “We Do Not Own Your Stuff Forever” - Consumerist
• Do you belong to Facebook, forever? - Chicago Tribune

With the latest trojans, phishers, hackers and imposters floating around cyberspace, especially on Facebook, it’s no wonder members have cause for concern. I’ve put the following suggestions together for you to help protect yourself from identity theft, hacking and the likes:

1. Monitor suspicious activity/links.

Be vigilant in watching for suspicious activity in your News Feed, your Wall and your Inbox. Never, ever click suspicious links. They can often look innocuous, even enticing - e.g. “Hey come look at your photo on this blog.” Before you click, look closely! Do you recognize the blog?

2. Remove friends as appropriate.

Remove any friends immediately who post suspicious links on your wall and/or in emails (especially if they are multiple-recipient emails). (Sadly, these friends may not even be aware they’re posting phishing links - someone may have hacked their account.)

I also recommend removing friends who send you app requests that you do not resonate with. This is usually a sign they’re not quite on the same wavelength as you and may not be someone you care to network with. For me, I do not care to receive invites for apps such as kidnap, or mob wars.

To remove a friend who posted suspicious links on your wall, for example, right click their name from the wall post, open in a new tab/window, scroll towards the bottom right and click “Remove from Friends.” Related post: Annoying Facebook Friends? Give ‘em the FaceBOOT!

3. Keep your wall clean.

Once you’ve removed the friend who posted the bad links, be sure to delete the offending wall post (just in case another person should happen to click on the link). Removing wall posts isn’t so obvious since the Facebook design changed in July 2007. What to do: mouseover the post and the little Edit pencil shows up; click X Delete.

4. Turn off Facebook Chat.

Never, ever chat with people you don’t know at all. (Of course, ideally you actually know all your Facebook friends!) In fact, I recommend turning off Facebook chat completely. I find this feature too distracting and prefer Skype for private instant messaging.

You may have read/heard about the imposters who’ve been watching a member’s activity, then they jump in and start a real familiar chat - ultimately asking for financial help of some sorts. Ugh! See: Fears of impostors increase on Facebook [CNN.com] and Latest Facebook Scam: Phishers Hit Up “Friends” for Cash [TechCrunch].

To turn off Facebook Chat, click the teeny silhouette icon at the very bottom right of your browser when logged into Facebook. If you’re online (online Chat) the dot will be green next to the icon and when you click the icon, in the window that pops up, click “Go Offline” as shown in the screenshot below. Your dot should turn to red.

5. Change your password often.

Don’t use the same easy-to-remember password on all your social networking sites. For the ones you use daily - like Facebook and Twitter - make the passwords obscure with 8 characters or more using a mixture of upper, lower, numbers and characters. The more obscure the better. Yes, it’s tough to remember. But I use the excellent software Roboform to manage passwords. [And, my Mac friends tell me they swear by 1Password].

6. Be careful who you share your password with.

Many super busy professionals use the services of a virtual assistant to help with managing their social networking accounts. If you do so, be sure to do your due diligence when hiring support. There are many, many incredible virtual assistants - and this is a topic for a whole other post, but bottom line is just use your discretion if/when sharing your Facebook password.

7. Hide your year of birth.

Don’t show your year of birth. This may or may not make a difference. I’m not one to be coy about my age/year of birth… however, some time ago I heard from a reliable source that not disclosing your year of birth was just one small step towards protecting yourself from identity theft.

Here’s how: on your Facebook Profile, click the “Info” tab, then click “Edit Information” (or mouseover the Basic Information section and click the little pencil. From the drop down menu next to Birthday, select “Show only month & day in my profile.”

8. Keep your private info private.

Many folks think you have to live in a glass house once you get online and use social networks. My take on this is the lines are for sure blurred between personal and professional. However, you still get to maintain a private life and don’t have to reveal all. See this related post: Facebook: Personal, Professional… and Private!

9. Adjust your privacy settings.

Facebook have done well over the past 18 months or so to really tighten up their privacy settings. You can get quite granular with a variety o
f settings. I choose mine to be fairly open as I’m okay with anyone being able to see my Facebook Profile and content I add. [For some peeps though, I do choose to block them completely - thus making myself practically invisible to them.] Refer to my bud, Nick O’Neil’s great post: 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know.

10. Protect your mobile device.

Given most apps keep you logged in on your mobile device, as with #6 above, just be mindful about who might have access to your phone. And, yes, it’s a nuisance to have to change passwords across multiple sites and platforms but at least you’ll have more peace of mind!

Sage advice from Facebook:

“Remember that although using fake names is a violation of the Facebook Terms of Use, people are not always who they say they are. You should always be careful when sending friend requests to, or accepting friend requests from people you do not know in the real world. And it is always risky to meet anyone in person whom you don’t know through real world friends.”

See: Facebook safety - from Facebook.com

What’s your experience with Facebook safety and privacy? Have you had some challenges and concerns to deal with?

[UPDATE: Wow, just since writing this blog post, I received this email:

You’ll notice this guy’s name is not hyperlinked - meaning I can’t click through to his profile. This shows me his privacy settings are set very tight; you can’t look at his profile unless you’re his friend. But he can still receive email.

Best course of action:

1. Add this person’s name to your BLOCK list: Click Settings > then Privacy Settings. And you’ll see a field at the bottom - type the person’s name then click the big blue BLOCK button. Facebook will identify the person’s profile; click block again.
2. Click Report Message (just under the person’s name in the message). Facebook gives you two choices: “advertisement/spam” or “harassment.” I chose the latter.
3. Delete the message.