Social Sites are Everyone's Space: Visibility is a Risk

Social Networking sites and engagement continues to accelerateas their popularity and viral speed, perhaps addictiveness as well continues its global reach.Sites like Twitter (micro-blogging), Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, and Linked in -- are challenging people to manage their online identities or personal brands. WIth the proliferation of these sites - the challenge becomes a risk question

How do you manage your personal brand image across so many sites?

Our research at Helix estimates that there are over 300 popular social networking sites being used www and their popularity is growing fast.

Already social networking sites like Facebook boasts over 200 million users, LinkedIn has 40 Million, and Twitter, a leading micro-blogging site, has almost 26 million.

Recruiters are having web based delight as they now can scour the web to help source candidates but also review their character as they can see the interactions more visibly in diverse online experiences aggregated from spiders crawling the web looking for integrity or character flaws.

The reality now is that your brand image is 7x24 and having a private conversation reg: your boss on your Facebook or Myspace account with friends access can result in also getting you fired which has happened and will continue to happen as people need to understand the risks of these social networks and the form of their interactions.

Getting your head around your Digital online brand is going to be an increasingly important employee training skill and policy development area for HR professionals and Leaders to ensure are in place.

Rather than advocating online behavior policy that presumes to run your life on and off the clock - employers need to undertand what's expected of them in the online realm.

Key factors include: employees learning not to share too much personal information about themselves, ensure they activate and use privacy settings, and only add friends you really know and make certain photos are private.

Google has a long memory as images and information posted on the internet have infinite knowledge memory. As a result, companies need to develop online behavior policies that are future proof to a reasonable degree and platform netural, meaning they recognize the changing nature and platforms being used and developed.

The best policies based on our experiences will demonstrate a holistic model across all aspects of a good online citizen across different platforms and web destinations.

It is not always easy to be safe by creating separate accounts, or using different applications for different groups of people, work life, pesonal life, family life. etc.

Another opportunity for Enterprise Risk Management Policies and Web 2.0 governance leadership and training investment requirements.

If you would like more information reg: Helix training programs and best practices in these areas, please contact us at info@helixcommerce.com.