SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media

• SMRC Intro

• Social Media and Their Rules
• Amway Global Rules
• Social Media Dos and Don'ts
• Social Media Tips
• Social Media Security and

Privacy Settings

Eight Useful Social Media Sites and Their Rules

What are “social media”? Social media are websites that allow people to gather online to interact or contribute content. The key word is social, because people gather on social media sites to connect with others to interact socially.

Previously, we introduced you to the five social media sites of keenest interest to Amway Global IBOs: Examples include Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. You should also be aware of an existing yet still significant group of social media sites: blogs. Three examples include Blogger (Blogspot), TypePad, and WordPress.

Feel free to enjoy the social nature of the Internet to meet new people and learn new things, share great ideas, and provide much needed support and input. However, be aware that like much of the Internet there is also a negative side to social media sites. For instance, social media sites are public – nothing public is ever totally private. Social media sites are often highly valued as free speech forums, with an emphasis on saying whatever is on your mind rather than what is true or provable. And social media sites have frequently come under attack by hackers who spread viruses and steal identities.

Here is some basic information about each site with a list of advantages and disadvantages.

Newer Social Media

Facebook
Facebook is a more relaxed social networking site where friends and family gather – not unlike at a back yard barbeque – to talk and share what life is all about, although unlike your back yard barbeque total strangers can invite themselves in and quickly become unwanted guests. It’s the current top social networking site with more than 300 million users worldwide, 50 percent of whom use it daily.

Facebook Terms of Use | Business Solutions | Facebook Connect | With External Sites


LinkedIn
LinkedIn is more of a professional or business site where colleagues and clients meet, share contacts, mentor each other, and introduce contacts to one another – not unlike at a conference or networking function. A great opportunity to network with others from your past associations and experiences, or meet others through people you connect with now, but unlike some other sites it’s more difficult to simply connect with people you don’t know.

LinkedIn User Agreement (See Dos and Don’ts)| Learning Center | Answers Groups | Company Pages


MySpace
MySpace was the hip place for the music and entertainment scene, where youth gathered and shared culture and custom – not unlike a student union or club. Now it’s a place to set up a page – a presence – with little expense. Once the top social networking site, it’s quickly losing steam.

MySpace Terms & Conditions | Safety Home


YouTube
Less about social interaction, YouTube is the megastore for storing and sharing videos with the world.  It’s where innovative ideas and creativity are rewarded with explosive viewing popularity. Its 258 million users include IBOs as well as critics, making it an important stop for prospects looking for information.

YouTube Terms of Service | Community Guidelines | Handbook | Copyright (Content ID)


Twitter
Twitter, a micro-blogging site with 4.43 million unique monthly visitors, is often compared to a coffee house or the water cooler, where people meet to chat about the latest trend or hottest topic, but it’s become more than that. It’s a giant conversation where you dip in and out at will, choosing what trends or information you tap into.

Twitter Terms of Service|Marketing Small Business with Twitter (NYT) |Twitter 101: A Special Guide

IBOAI Welcomes you to follow us on our English page (@IBOAI) or our Spanish page (@IBOAISpanish), but to keep our followers free of spam, junk, and illicit content we only accept those who protect their accounts. (Log in to Twitter, go to Settings, and check “Protect my tweets”.)

Existing Social Media
Blogs have been around much longer than the Facebooks and Twitters of today and have had a slightly different use. They have a lot in common with websites in that they provide a publishing platform for information and opinions, yet they were a precursor to truly social networking sites by allowing readers to comment on that information or those opinions and the authors and commenters to interact. Still, a blog can function perfectly fine without comments as readers tune in to read what authors have to say. While comments on a blog may be interesting to read, the number or lack of comments may be no indication of a blog’s value or reach. In fact, some blogs involve the same steady cast of characters interacting with one another rather than acting like the open public forum they pretend to be. Another is primarily the blog’s author commenting on his own material. Most blogs involve a stream of anonymous readers who stop by to read and never comment.

Most blogging sites function the same way. The ones we highlight aren’t so much different in function as in individual applications and processes. Most provide a basic application for free but offer additional services for a fee. If you want to try a blog, look over these and other sites and choose the one that seems to best fit your needs.

Blogger (or Blogspot.com)
Blogger is the website you go to for creating and maintaining a blog on Blogspot, which is the domain name for the blogs associated with Blogger. Blogger is a very easy-to-use site, owned by Google and tied into other Google accounts and applications. Blogger is free and offers lots of options. Of the free blog services we researched, this is probably the easiest to use and the most popular. Because Blogger is associated with Google, it is most easily indexed by the Google search index. You can use Google Analytics to track traffic, which is more complex than other blog tracking services.

*”Next Blog” button takes reader to random other blogs with which you may not want to be associated. It is possible to remove the top bar that contains the “Next Blog” button if you have enough experience to manipulate the template code.

Blogger Help Page | Blogger Policies | Blogger Getting Started Guide | Terms of Service

TypePad
TypePad is very easy to use and probably a little more versatile but also slightly more complex than Blogger. It automatically provides site-use stats and offers lots of options for making a useful blog. The basic package is free but you can buy more extensive services.

TypePad Knowledge Base | TypePad FAQs | Terms of Use

WordPress
Of the three services, WordPress is probably the most complex but also offers the most options. It’s not as intuitive to use, but once you learn it, you can do a lot with it. WordPress offers a basic free service and a more robust paid service. You can download programs to house WordPress applications on your own servers for greater control.

WordPress Support | How to Get Started | WordPress Forums | Terms of Use & Copyright

A few words about spam – spam isn’t just about e-mail anymore!
Spam used to be the problem of e-mail. It was the unsolicited and unwanted commercial messages from people you didn’t know and with whom you had never had a business relationship. Now the concept of spam has expanded to include social media and can also include someone messaging you out of the blue with the only desire to send you a link to a website.

No one likes to receive spam, whatever its source or purpose. People who send it earn a bad reputation. The idea behind the social media is to make connections with people you know or through people you know. Commercial messages are deemed all right if they are given in the context of receiving some other information or some other benefit, but seen as unseemly if given solely to sell them something. In many social media, sending them is a quick ticket to being unfriended or unfollowed.

Social Media Etiquette
Just as with anything new, the way to make the most of social media is to learn about them and their rules. Here are a few sites that provide what some people think are the etiquette rules you should consider when launching into any social media.

Netiquette

• (Albion)

Social Media Etiquette

• (Chris Brogan)

• (More Chris Brogan)

• (Techipedia)
• (Digital Labz)
• (Community Orgzr)