PR 101

I was on vacation last week in Asheville, N.C. But you didn’t read about in anything I posted – not on Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn or Twitter. I posted nothing on Four Square about the places my wife and I ate, the things we did or where we stayed. I did not mention in last week’s blog post that I was going anywhere.

Why? It’s simple really – even in a time when I, and everyone else, is more connected than ever, it is important to maintain some privacy. As I have said, I don’t want to know what you doing every waking minute of your day. You shouldn’t care about what I am doing during my day.

I am constantly amazed by the amount of information people spew on the Internet. When I think about posting something, I use the supermarket checkout line test: if I were standing in the checkout line in my local store, would I turn to the person behind me and reveal something deeply personal. Remember, the odds are this person is a total stranger. The second part of the test is would that person care?

Of course, there is far too much interest in the minutiae of people’s lives. I saw an advertisement today for a new show on ABC called “Family Secrets.” The show’s teaser on ABC’s website says: “Why families keep secrets and what happens when the truth comes out.”

Come on, who in their right mind would go on national television and spill everything there is to spill about their family. And who would watch something like that?

There is another concern about being too open on the web – security. I will never understand why people announce to the world that they are not home. The Facebook announcement that the Hendersons are making an extended tour of the American West must make burglars drool.

Come on people, you think that everyone reading your posts is doing it because you are so interesting? Some of those readers are tracking who’s not home, when they will be gone, where they are, and when they will get back. No sense in rushing the theft if there’s no need. You mix a trip announcement on Facebook, some pictures posted during the trip and a couple of tweets about the Grand Canyon and you have burglary.

So, my advice is to be discreet. It is the best path to take.

Incidentally, Asheville, N.C. is a beautiful place. I recommend it highly for a place to relax and recharge.

Sunday night my local television news station teased story about the things people should not post on Facebook. The basis of the piece was how dangerous it is to post certain information on the site. People seem all too willing to give up vital information about themselves.

While all of the sharing social media has caused might be connecting people, I see a lot of danger in that. Is it a really good thing for people to know you ate at Ray’s Famous Pizza in New York, then went to see “Promises, Promises” on Broadway and finally dropped in for a nightcap at your favorite local bar?

I often hear complaints from people who are inundated with marketing solicitations. They wonder why they are they getting so many. Think about it. I think this trend is increasingly dangerous. Do we really mean to give up all of our privacy?

Today (Monday), I read a piece in the New York Times about the late author John Updike. It reminded my just how much things have changed in a very short time.

In the piece, writer Sam Tanenhaus that says “Updike was a private man, if not a recluse like J. D. Salinger or a phantom like Thomas Pynchon, then a one-man gated community, visible from afar but firmly sealed off, with a No Trespassing sign posted in front.”

Updike was a man of the middle 20^th Century, pre-Internet, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging. I think the reason he could maintain that distance was that there were not the tools to break the walls he had erected.

I wrote on this topic last year. But since I did, even more ways to reveal yourself to the world have come along. Now there is Foursquare, a site that tells everyone what restaurants, movies and other things you attend. There are more and more review sites, which ask people to comment on a hotel, a car or a book. There are location sites that tell people exactly where you live and where you are traveling.

The amount of information people are willing to share with the world – or at least the 1.8 billion people on the web – is staggering. When I was a reporter, I used to tell people in a week I could tell their life story. I could do that because the paper I worked for bought proprietary databases. Some poor person had spent weeks gathering and inputting all of the information those databases contained. It took time to look through them and you had to know how search what you were looking for.

Now, I can do it an hour or two. It doesn’t any particular skill to gather the information. Anyone with some time on their hands can find out just about anything they want about anyone they want. Often that information is used maliciously.

While malicious use of information is one effect of this spewing, I wonder if there are other side effects? Do we really need to know everything about everybody? I am not so sure. I am curious as to what you think.

There was a large readership, but not a lot of comments, on Monday’s blog covering what I feel are the rules of social media. I guess that means people agree with the rules I am proposing.

As I said Monday, every community needs rules. Otherwise, there is anarchy. No one can do anything is a community in that kind of atmosphere. Social media is no different.

So, here are some more divided by the applications I use most:

• So let’s talk about LinkedIn first –
  • If I do not know you, do not ask me to endorse you. I have over 6,000 followers on LinkedIn, all good smart people. But there is no way I will ever know enough about most of these people to provide an endorsement. I enjoy interacting with them, but that’s not a basis for a recommendation.
  • Join some groups on LinkedIn. That’s one of the best parts of the site, connecting with people who have similar interests. Once you are accepted into a group, don’t be a lurker. Comment on discussions and start discussions of your own. It’s how we all learn.
  • Speaking of groups, if I don’t accept your invitation to join a group, it means I don’t want to. Don’t keep sending invitations.
  • If someone sends you an invitation, and you do not want to accept, do not IDK them. Archive the invitation. As I understand it, if a person accumulates enough IDKs they are banned from LinkedIn. So be nice.
  • Now Twitter –
    • No one is saying you have to tweet 30 times a day, but once or twice a day is nice. Why else are you on there if you don’t tweet?
    • Retweet tweets you like. It is just common courtesy, plus it helps spread the word.
    • This is a personal one, but I do not like people who use bots to increase their follower numbers. I have almost 8,500 followers, but I did it organically, one at-a-time. So don’t send me tweets saying you have a program that increases my followers. This is not high school; the person with the most followers doesn’t win.
    • If you post a blog or something else, tweet about once. That tells everyone that it is out there. That’s okay. But only tweet once. Anything more than that is like ringing the doorbell 20 times in a row.
    • Don’t use auto tweets. I was guilty of this myself last year. It is wrong and I stopped doing it. It is just not honest.
    • Do not send me any tweets about multi-level marketing schemes. I don’t believe you and I will never will.
    • Facebook. I admit I have some issues with Facebook. I think there is way too much extraneous stuff on it. Frankly, I think marketing attempts get lost in the thicket of Farmville, Mafia Games and other stuff.
      • Now, I admit I have taken a couple of quizzes on Facebook. But, it was my decision. I do not play Farmville or Mafia games. I worked on a dairy farm as a kid. It is not anything like that game. For one, you do not get manure all over yourself and the cows don’t kick.
      • As for the Mafia Wars game, I covered the Mafia a lot as a reporter. Not a nice group of people, frankly. I hate it when people glamorize a group that killed people. I have never understood the appeal. What’s next, Al Qaeda Wars? So, don’t ask me to play.
      • Do not create a fan page of yourself and then ask others to become your fan. Remember that rule about not thumping your own chest in social media? Well, this is the penultimate example. To me, it is egotistical and narcissistic. You build fans by demonstrating value, not by asking.

I could write an entire blog about the dos and don’ts of blogging. I have been at it for over year. I think I will cover it next week.

Again, if you like or don’t like these rules, please let me know.