Ever wonder what the differences between social networking and social booking are?  The terms get intermixed, which gets confusing.

Here’s the differences between the two and when you might want to use them.

Social networking Sites provide more of an interaction between its members.  For example, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ all allow you to find friends, family, acquaintances, business connections and connect with them socially using messages, pictures or video.

If you’re in business on the web or have a website, social networking has become vital to helping you establish credibility, getting your business noticed and helping the search engines determine your popularity.

Social bookmarking Sites on the other hand are sites for storing, organizing and managing all your favorite links and websites.

But some of these social sites offer both bookmarking and networking features.  Here are some social sites that can be used for both purposes.

Twitter

The Social Networking Features of Twitter are:

• Following Twitter users
• Seeing Status updates for those you follow
• Messaging through @replies
• Private messaging

Although Twitter is more for social networking and sharing, it does offer a bookmarking feature:   You can save your favorite tweets in your ‘Favorites’ by clicking on the Favorites star.

More Sites that Offer Social Networking and Social Bookmarking

Facebook

Facebook also has social networking and bookmarking features as well.  Social Networking Features include:

•  Posting messages
• Messaging on walls
• Adding Facebook members as friends
• Private messaging through Facebook email
• Connect through applications
• Join groups and fan pages

Most of us wouldn’t think of Facebook as a social bookmarking site, and it’s really not designed for that, but you could bookmark a link by commenting  in your status and adding the URL there. Then flag it for ‘only me’ instead of Public.

However with so many other great bookmarking tools, I don’t recommend using Facebook for book marking.

Del.icio.us

The Delicious  Social Networking features include adding Delicious members to your network.  Delicious, however is better designed as a social bookmarking site and is probably one of the best when it comes to bookmarking. You can use Delicious to bookmarks using reviews and tags.

You can bookmark posts with descriptive tags.  Socially you can connect with others by sharing  your content using their email service.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is gaining in popularity as a social networking site as it connects you with interested contacts and lets you exchange ideas, knowledge, websites, posts  and opportunities.  In fact LinkedIn is used quite a bit for increasing visibility when looking for someone to hire or looking for a job. In my opinion,  LinkedIn is much better at social networking.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon has a good mix of social networking and social bookmarking.

The Social networking features of StumbleUpon include connecting with StumbleUpon’s members.  StumbleUpon lets you connect with members you may already have on Facebook.  You an also connect with other members through their email service or their private messaging.

StumbleUpon also has a social bookmarking feature that lets you save bookmarks with tags and reviews.

You can use StumbleUpon purely for social bookmarking by stumbling your interests with the thumbs up icon which will save your sites to your likes.

Social Networking and Social Bookmarking Take Away…

Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and Google Bookmarks  are favorites for Social bookmarking.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn are favorites for Social Networking.

I personally struggle with bookmarking. I haven’t found a really great bookmarking site that I like, probably because I haven’t taken the time to really work at getting set up without confusing myself

Share with us your favorite Social Networking sites, and have you found a social bookmarking site that works well for you?

Google Plus + has been a controversial social networking service ever since it started earlier this summer.

Originally thought to be the ultimate rival to Facebook, Google Plus opened to an eager public looking for a viable alternative to the relatively few social media options.

In the few months since people began using Google Plus, it has acquired just as many detractors as it has fans. Critics cite the service as too closed off, serving only a niche audience.

But a recent and significant change may cause people to rethink their perceptions of the service. Google Plus has been open to the public since September 20th, meaning that people no longer need an invite from another user of Google Plus in order to start your own profile.

Now with the social networking service more accessible than ever, there’s no reason not to check it out.

Here’s a brief overview of what Google Plus offers to the blogger or web aficionado looking to extend their online influence.

Google Plus+ Features that Streamline your Networking Experience

By now you’ve likely heard about many of Google Plus’s most attractive features, but I’d like to go over them for those unfamiliar with the service.

Like any other social networking service, Google Plus allows you to make a profile using your personal information for reference, including your name, your hometown, where you work, etc.

Right from the beginning we encounter something that makes Google Plus stand out among its peers: you have to use your real name when you sign up with Google Plus; the service doesn’t allow for false names or pseudonyms. This is great from a networking perspective since you won’t have to wonder about the authenticity of someone’s profile on Google Plus.  Everyone signed up with the service (in theory) is the genuine article.

One of the most innovative aspects of Google Plus is their “circles” feature. As you add friends, acquaintances, business contacts and so on to your list of contacts, you’ll find the need to mitigate the information you share on your profile.

Some information would be better suited to fellow bloggers interested in your coverage on a topic, while pictures from a family reunion would be best relegated to those closer to you.

The circles feature takes care of this information feature flawlessly. You simply put each contact into their relevant “circle” depending on their connection to you, and you may choose to share information with separate circles or the entirety of them.

You can choose to grow your relations differently depending on the circle; the feature essentially lets you network at your own pace across social spectrums. The brilliance of the idea has been infectious: since the debut of Google Plus circles, other major social media services have mysteriously added similar features to their own interfaces.

Integrate Google Plus+ into other Google Services

You’ll be at an advantage if you already have a Gmail account or if you’re familiar with other Google services like Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and so on.

If you have a Gmail account, Google Plus will recommend contacts from that account to add to your list of contacts, giving you a base of connections to work with. Think of Google+ as the social networking arm of your Google services, utilizing every other resource the company has in order to ensure an optimal social networking experience.

You can easily search for new contacts on the Google+ interface by simply typing a name, subject, location, etc. into the search bar and sifting through the results for the person that may be interested in your information.

A Healthy Balance between Professional and Casually Social

As I see it, Google Plus stands somewhere between professional and casual extremes on the social networking spectrum. While it has the professional edge similar to business-minded social media sites like LinkedIn, there’s definitely a softer edge to the way Google+ allows you to interact with your peers.

And while the setting is more casual than the one offered on LinkedIn, it doesn’t anywhere approach the loose and fast pace of a place like Facebook. You won’t find your news feed cluttered with requests to play mini games involving farm animals, nor (if you utilize your circles correctly) will you be inundated with mindless status updates.

You can reach out to potential professional connections in one breath while posting about your new favorite band in the next, and the right people will see each post.

Google Plus, in other words, is the perfect social networking tool for the professional looking to expand their reach.

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

In an effort to beef up my social networking efforts, I’ve been looking in to how to use LinkedIn on a regular basis.

I haven’t used LinkedIn much but I’ve noticed that they’ve just recently passed the 100 million members mark.

They’re also being stressed as one of the premier social networking sites ranking up there with Twitter and Facebook,  so adding them to my repertoire of social sites probably isn’t a bad idea.

Here are a few useful tips on how to use LinkedIn to connect with professionals, get found on the web and share your expertise through LinkedIn tools that will help expand your reach.

How to Use LinkedIn Recommendations

The recommendations feature lets you ask any one of your LinkedIn connections  to recommend or endorse you on LinkedIn.

This is a unique social marketing feature and pretty awesome one a that because this is the type of feature that goes a long way for establishing your credibility as a business owner and industry expert.

According to LinkedIn, and I agree,

“Users with recommendations are three times as likely to get inquiries through LinkedIn searches.”

Use LinkedIn Answers

“Answers” is a special section within LinkedIn where you can post questions.

When you answer questions that are relevant to your industry niche or experience, you’re establishing yourself as a credible expert and of course we all know that credibility is a buying trigger.  People buy from people they consider to be credible experts.

Effectively Complete Your LinkedIn Profile

If you’re going to connect with others on LinkedIn or ask for recommendations you’re going to need a good profile.

Here are a few essential ingredients to an eye catching profile:

Summary – People are more likely to follow someone that has a profile summary that states what they’ve done, the benefits they bring to the table and what they are about as opposed to something more generic.

For example here’s a profile that gets my attention:

“Certified aerobics instructor, nutrition specialist, marathon winner and author of  ‘fitness freaks.”

Unlike the more generic profile like this one:

“Inspiring people to get in shape encouraging fitness and a healthier lifestyle.”

See the difference?  Which one would you follow?

Awards - You can enhance your profile by using the “Add Sections” tab.

Under that tab you have a list of about twenty enhanced profile options that you can add to your profile. Consider adding “Honors and Awards” along with “Publications” if you’re published and any certifications that you may have relevant to your business.

Pictures – People love pictures and LinkedIn has them too.  Be sure to use your photo here as well.

Summary - In your profile you have the ability to include a summary. This would be a good place to s a great place to promote your business by discussing the benefits you bring to the table.   For instance use your unique selling point (USP) and discuss how can you make your prospect’s life better.

Don’t make this salesy but do include a comprehensive summary of what makes your business special and unlike all others.

Using LinkedIn to connect with as many people on the site as you can, the more people who connect with you, the more potential business opportunities that will come your way.

Each person you’re connected with also has their own connections, helping you expand your reach and get more exposure.

Like any social networking site, create a goal for your LinkedIn activities and stay focused enough to achieve that goal.

Use metrics like those found on Socialbrite.org to test and track your LinkedIn success and measure how it helps you grow your business. Using metrics is always a great way to track and test your success with any tool, which is what helps you improve usage.

Join me on LinkedIn

How do you like LinkedIn an how much success has it brought you?

One of the biggest things I’ve struggled with online is getting traffic.

I’ve managed to do well at lots of things but getting traffic, and lots of it, isn’t all that easy.

You’ve probably noticed how social media is gaining momentum on the web.

Well,  I’ve learned a few things using social media that has boosted my traffic considerably.

Having said that, let me share with you 8 of my favorite tips for using social media to drive traffic.

These are things I do, and I know if you implement them, they will work for you too.

1. Don’t By Shy, Write a Great Profile

When you create your your Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo or other social media site accounts, don’t ignore your profile.  Spend a few minutes creating a genuine, candid profile that describes who you are.  Make it interesting enough to peak a reader’s curiosity about you.

Writing a great profile makes it so much easier for people to get to know you which is what starts building relationships, and that’s so key to getting followers and keeping them.

Another thing is to be sure you include a link to your site on your profile page. This is a pretty basic tip but it’s so effective.  Doing this actually gives people a reason to click through from the social media site to your website or blog.

A good enticement would be to make a free offer that provides them with some type of solution.

Also include a picture with your profile. A trick I use is to hold my camera at arms length in front of me and snap.  Voila, you’ve got a picture you can add right now.

2. Get More Traffic by Interacting More

Social sites are social.  Nothing like stating the obvious, but being social means interacting with people.  Never just post content and then move on.  Spend a few minutes, maybe even a half hour or so each day interacting.

Try saying a few encouraging or inspiring things that people appreciate related to your niche.  I sometimes open up a training guide I’ve purchased and pull out a good tidbit of information that might help my audience.

Things like this go a long way for not only getting followers but impressing the ones you have

Also link your social media accounts together.  For example, link Twitter to your Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, HubPages and other social media pages.

3. Make a Request to your followers to “retweet” and re-post

If you create a great post, for example something on a controversial or hot topic, ask folks in your social media networks to re-post it.  Similarly, ask your Twitter followers to “retweet” it.

If you don’t ask the answer is always “No”, right?

4. Grow Your Network Daily

I like to spend at least 15 minutes each day growing my network. I know, just one more thing to do right?  But including this task in your daily routine can bring in big results by the end of the month.

Unfortunately everything does take time, but in about 6 months you’ll be amazed at how your network can grow, and believe me, by the end of that six months you’ll be glad you did it.

5. Use your real name

Some people are hesitant to use their real name, but people who want to do business with you won’t take you seriously if your name is “Webgirl2″  Using your real name helps build trust and makes you believable.  It also  makes it easier for others to find you on the web.

6. Post Useful Content

Social media isn’t totally about networking, it also includes sharing information. If you can share your best information with your network and followers, you’ll be building trust and respect as well establishing yourself as expert in your niche.

Those are the things that will bring you more sales

7. Optimize your content for Getting Traffic

Social sites like Squidoo and Yahoo! Answers are regularly indexed and crawled by the search engines.  So optimize your content for the search engines by using relevant keywords and on page optimization strategies, your content will take you a lot farther.

Here are useful list of easy steps you can follow:

http://www.homenotion.com/blog/effective-seo-copy/

8. Use Your Time Wisely with Social Media

Instead of trying to interact and build relationships with thousands of people, build your relationships with just a handful of partners. One good partner can send you hundreds or thousands of prospects and customers.

The bottom line is…

Social media, I don’t believe, is going away.  It only makes sense that it’s here to stay.

That’s because the search engines use social media to determine how popular and well liked websites are, but  social media also gives the individual an awesome opportunity to establish themselves and generate a large following.

Start by using these 8 strategies, if you’re still stumped with how to get more overall targeted traffic to your site or blog and appreciate step-by-step training, I highly recommend Traffic F.U.E.L.  It’s how I’ve developed my social media traffic strategies but there are so many more powerful ways of getting free traffic — and it’s all contained in Traffic F.U.E.L.

Here’s where to find out more about Traffic FUEL

Ever wonder how effective social networking really is, especially for groups and communities?

Susan Wells of cheap insurance quotes has.  In fact Susan offers our guest post today and shows us just how effective it really can be.

Guest Post By Susan Wells

You’ve heard it time and again, on the news, from grouchy parents and teachers, even so me kids themselves that social networking sites like Facebook are just a waste of time, that so many people spend so much of their lives on the Internet and that “real” socializing no longer occurs.

Interestingly enough, though, several studies show that communities and organizations benefit substantially from having and maintaining an online presence.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, an on-going research project that has compiled an impressive and diverse array of data about how the Internet impacts our lives, determined in a study that groups substantially benefit from the “social side of the Internet.

The study asked several questions to 27 groups. The groups represented a wide variety of specific goals and interests, including religious groups, social advocacy groups, political groups, and recreational groups.

Of those surveyed (both Internet and non-Internet users), 68% of respondents believed the Internet had a major impact on their ability to communicate with members of their group, 62% believed that it had a major impact on their ability to draw attention to an issue, and 59% believed that the Internet had a major impact on their ability to organize activities.

Of course, these figures represent only general beliefs that a group of people hold about online activity. But how effective has the Internet proven for really accomplishing the goals of groups and communities?

The same Pew study asked another set of question that may be more helpful in shedding light on this question. The survey culled a set of respondents, and asked only those who successfully accomplished something through their group or organization. Of this set, they were asked how big a role did the Internet play in getting their goal accomplished.

For those who had successfully elected a candidate into office, 53% said the Internet played a major role. For those who had raised awareness about an issue, 46% believed the Internet was a major force. For those who had raised money for their cause, 33% that the Internet was a main driver.

Although these percentages are somewhat lower, if we take the same goals and look at how much respondents believed that the Internet played at least some role, the figures change?for electing a candidate into office, 84 the Internet played some role, whether major or minor.

For raising awareness about an issue, the percentage was 82%. For raising money for a cause, 69% believed the Internet had something to do with it.

Of course, the Internet, as a relatively new technology, has not completely immersed itself in the culture of all communities and organizations that aspire to achieve specific goals. As such, how effective social media tools will be in actually accomplishing substantive aims is yet to be seen.

We all know that it has had a major impact on recent political elections , and we do know that the Internet is one medium that most quickly disseminates information about pretty much anything.

Even if social networking and media has a long way to go, it is well on its way to being the most important method for achieving our goals collectively.

How has social networking affected your groups or communities, or has it?

How do you use Twitter? … Or do you?

If you’re not a Twitter fan, or even if you are, you should know that Twitter is a viral marketing power house.

It works like this, you send a tweet and your followers can re-tweet it.   If they happen to have 5,000 followers,  your one tweet can become 5,000 tweets.

That’s a pretty awesome way to connect online.

But how do you actually put this powerful tool to work for you?

The object is to learn how to Twitter more productively by creating tweets that get re-tweeted again and again helping boost your business far ahead of the masses.

First of all it helps to understand the Twitter mentality.

It helps to understand how Twitter users think and want to be treated.  Not everyone gets this.

No one wants to be sold to and Twitter users are no different. You can certainly sell on Twitter but you have to do it in a way that Twitter users appreciate.

Twitter users want to hear about things from you, things that are exclusive to you. They want to hear about special, unique content, special deals or things they won’t find somewhere else.

Tweeting about your product that you sell for $27 isn’t going to impress followers, on the other hand, a 40% sale would.

Here are 10 tips to help you not only connect with your followers in a positive, non-marketing way but also take advantage of Twitter’s viral marketing power…

1. Know the Twitter Protocol

There’s a protocol to Twitter and it has its own language and culture, so getting to know the Twitter phrases and concepts will help you use Twitter more effectively.  Here they are:

* The hashtag -  Hashtags keep comments to a single stream on specific topics.  Using hashtags gives  you and your followers the ability to search and access any tweets containing that particular hashtag.

For example, if you ask your users a question and tell them to tweet responses with #lawofattraction, the user would type in their message and add #lawofattraction to the end of the tag.

Likewise if others are using that hashtag you can easily see what’s going on within that topic.

Any user can create a hashtag simply by adding it to their own tweet. To find out if a hashtag is already being used go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in your chosen hashtag.

* #FF (Follow Friday) – On Fridays, Twitter users will often give recommendations to their friends about who they might want to follow. They do this with the “follow Friday” hashtag, #FF.

* @reply - This is a direct message sent from one tweeter to another. If someone sends you an @reply, you should try to respond.

* RT, Retweet, PRT, Please RT, etc. – These are all abbreviations of retweet or please retweet.

* Trending topics – Twitter displays a list of trending topics on their front page and these are topic that are currently very popular.  If you can tweet about trending topics and link it to your website this can bring you quite a bit of traffic.

One final thing.  People often ask, “How often should I tweet?”

It depends, how’s that for being specific

While you shouldn’t tweet just to fill up space, you also shouldn’t leave your account untweeted for too long.

A good rule of thumb is to Tweet enough so that people don’t forget who you are but strive to make every Tweet worthwhile.

Some people tweet every day whether or not they have something meaningful or not, others don’t like to  tweet unless they have something worthwhile to say.

I’d say a good balance of the two is ideal.

2. Go Viral With Your Tweets

To get your Tweets to go viral, they have to strike a chord with readers.

The tweets that get passed along the most have at least one of these elements:

* Caring & Compassion - Tweets that inspire people to care get passed along. For example, the Japan Earth quake fund raised lots of money and awareness through viral Twitter tweets.

* They’re Funny -  People love good humor, and humor is viral.  Tell a joke or hit someone’s funny bone and you’ll get some great re-tweets.

* Shock, awe or surprise - Saying something shocking or surprising gets attention, and if it’s surprising or shocking enough, it will get passed on.

* News - Tweets that are relevant to news topics or reveal new information about topics people care about will get passed on.

Negative emotions and controversy trigger tweets as well. Always be polite and never be cruel,  but a good difference of opinion can stimulate emotions and that triggers tweets.

3. Create Things that Stand Out in Your Niche

On Twitter we’re all competing for attention,  so if you want users to pay attention to you, you have to Tweet about things that stand out.

That could be a video, an ad campaign, a unique blog post, whatever it is,  your tweets need to jump out of the “generic bin” and catch people’s attention.

For instance, if your niche is weight loss and you interviewed someone with a surefire plan to lose 10 pounds in one week, I think people would be interested in hearing about that.

4. Tie Twitter in with Your Website

Tie your Twitter account in with your website. Here’s how:

Include a Twitter follow button on your main website. This lets people, who come to your site and like what they see, follow you.

Twitter offers several pre-set buttons you can use to add to your site, including the “Follow” button and the “Tweet” button. The benefit of using Twitter’s buttons is that everyone is already used to seeing them and clicking on them.

5. Build a Dynamic Customer Relationship on Twitter

Building relationships with Twitter followers is a lot like building relationships offline.  You have to get personal. The more impersonal your Twitter feed feels, the less people will interact with you.

On the other hand, the more you make it clear that you’re there for your followers and customers, that you respect them and treat them specially, the more they’ll respond.

In short, make friends with your customers. Do what it takes for customers to actually like interacting with you and your brand.

6. Go Viral with Smart Following

It’s important that you get the people you want to follow you, but also that you’re following the right people.

I don’t personally recommend that you follow every person that follows you,  but there are groups you should be following.

First off, follow your competitors. Whenever your competitor makes an announcement, you should know. If they’re having trouble, you should know. If some sort of news event has an effect on your industry, you should know.

Follow your top customers. Many businesses find that 60% to 80% of their revenues come from just a handful of customers. You absolutely want to be following those customers.

Follow the major players in your niche. Following the right people can sometimes be even more important than putting out the right tweets.

Finally, follow anyone who you find interesting or just plain like.

7. Contests Can Go Viral Very Quickly

One of the most effective viral marketing tools online and on Twitter are contests.

All you need to run a successful contest is a compelling prize and enough of a following to launch the contest.  If you can muster up a compelling enough prize, you’re likely to see a boatload of traffic and people from everywhere ready to compete.

For example, take Affiliate marketers.  They often give away top-of-the-line products as prizes to the affiliates that sell the most.  It’s a great way to virally get the message out there and encourage re-tweets.

8. Ask for a Re-tweet

The most effective way to get re-tweets is to just ask.

People on Twitter are in scan mode and they only stop at the tweets that really get their attention, so your focus is to ‘get their attention’.

But once you have their attention they aren’t always aware of what to do, so if you want them to retweet your tweet, ask them. If you want them to enter your contest, tell them and if you want them to click on a link, ask them.

9. How Viral Are You? Let’s Find Out

How effective has your viral campaign been? How viral are your competitors’ campaigns? How well known is your brand online?

Find out by using Twitter’s search feature at  http://search.twitter.com

Search for a company name or product name. What are people saying about it?   Are there any complaints? Are people saying good things, bad things, are they re-tweeting? Etc.

This is where using hash tags comes in pretty handy.

10 Use Twitter to Address Problems

One of the powerful things about Twitter is that you can funnel your message directly to your customers instantly.  This can really come in handy when a PR emergency or customer service mishap happens.

To give you an example,  I had a question once on how to do something on my Aweber autoresponder account.  I put the question out to Twitter and an Aweber rep answered me on Twitter within about 2 minutes.

That’s not only powerful for me, it’s powerful for Aweber and their business, not to mention how impressed I was with their support and their attentiveness.

One other great example was with the online shoe store Zappos.   When they had a staff layoff they faced a serious threat to business.  Instead of shying away from the attention, Zappos encouraged employees to tweet honestly about the situation.

This demonstrated the company’s honesty and how their employees still believed in the company and Twitter helped them effectively do that.

So how do you use Twitter?

If you’re not using Twitter regularly, hopefully I’ve lit a fire under your chair to go out and make twitter work for your business.

With a solid understanding of how to use Twitter you can start building a  Twitter presence and use the power of Twitter as your viral marketing power.

With Facebook's extreme popularity, privacy concerns and security are of the utmost importance.

If you've got a Facebook Wall and Fan page, here's a  Facebook security Checks and checklist for ensuring you and your private information stay secure

Once you have your Facebook account set up, the first thing you’ll want to do is make sure your account’s privacy settings match your expectations and your goals for having the account in the first place.  

You’ll want to think about who are the “right” people to be sharing your information with. They are likely to be anyone you want to find information about you or your business.

Setting up Your  Privacy Settings?

After you sign up for a new Facebook account, go to your new account page and click the item that’s entitled “Control what information you share.”  This will provide you with information about your Facebook’s privacy settings.

1. Click “Account” in the blue menu bar in the right top corner of the page.

2. Click “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu that appears.

3. Find the link to “Customize settings” and click it.

4. Go to the bottom of the “Things I share” section and find the entry that says “Include me in the ‘People Here Now’ after I check in”.

5. Unclick the box that says “Enable.”

Next Review each of the subcategories in the “Things I Share” section.

1. For each subcategory, decide who you want to be able to see that information, keeping in mind how sharing each type of information will affect your business.  The choices are “Everyone,” “Friends of Friends,” “Friends Only,” and “Customize.”

2. Select “Everyone” if you want to share with the largest possible audience.

3. Select “Friends of Friends” if you want to share with the extended network of people that have some connection to you.

4. Select “Friends Only” if you want the information to be accessible only to people that you actually know and interact with directly.

5. Select “Customize” if you want to be able to identify specific individuals or groups of individuals that will be able to see the specified information.  This section will also allow you to select 'only me'. For example, you may not want anyone to see your birthday

Next review each of the subcategories in the "Things I share" section. 

Again, these are just tips, your settings are your own personal preferences. 

- Photos you are “tagged” in – Friends only is advisable

– Your home address – Only you is advisable

- Your home phone number – Only you is advisable

– Your mobile phone number – Only friends is advisable, however this is a personal call.

– Click “Edit album privacy” to limit who can see the photos that you post to your account.

Facebook Groups

If you go to your 'Home' page you will see an option to the left for creating Groups.

If you set up any new Facebook Groups, decide between the three available privacy settings:  “Closed,” “Secret,” and “Open.”

Select “Open” if you want the Group, its membership list and any group content to be accessible to anyone.

– Select “Closed” (this is the default setting”) if you want the existence of the group and its list of members to be public, but content to be accessible only to members.

- Select “Secret” if you don’t even want the existence of the group, or a listing of its members, to be public.

Facebook security best practices overall:

Don’t automatically accept the default Facebook privacy settings.

Review your privacy settings whenever Facebook changes its policy or rolls out a new site-wide feature.

Happy Facebooking

It's amazing to me how such a simple tool like Twitter has so much potential.  But getting the most out of using Twitter you really need to know how to Twitter more productively.

I've experienced Twitter as powerful tool but not everyone would agree; in fact some people avoid it like the plague and find it useless and a waste of time. 

But before you can expect to get any benefit from a tool like Twitter you need to analyze why you use it, what your goals are for using it and what you hope to achieve with it.

Twitter is primarily a networking tool so your goal for using Twitter should be to connect and interact with like minded people. It's also perfect for expressing yourself in a unique way so as to build trust and follower confidence in you.  If, on the other hand, you're more interested in link building or using social bookmarking to build links, then sites like Digg, Squidoo and Del.icio.us would better suit your needs.

If you understand how social networking works and you appreciate the benefits it provides your business, you'll understand how to Twitter more productively, specifically with how to use it to build your brand, build trust and connect with potential customers.

I use Twitter most every day but making a plan for how to use it and making the most of the Twitter productivity tools and applications available is how I've learned to get the most out of the tool.  I'm still perfecting my use of Twitter and every day I'm finding new ways to make it work for me but using it often and trying to be consistent makes a difference.  

If you're not using Twitter consistently or you're still having trouble figuring out how Twitter can help you and your business here are a few things I do that might help you start using Twitter more productively…

1. Sort Out Your Followers

I'm fairly particular about the people I follow, I don't follow everyone, I only follow people in my niche that I can learn from or people that I have met or know personally.  But not everyone uses that philosophy.  You may follow everyone that follows you and if you’re following several thousand people it's hard to keep up with them all.

That's where it helps to sort out your followers. Twitter.com itself isn't much help there, so I use Tweetdeck.  It allows me to separate the folks I follow into groups.  I can set up a group of friends, set up a business group or any group I wish and Tweetdeck will create a window for me to see only the tweets that come in for the people, very handy. 

For me Tweetdeck simply makes it easier to enter into more focused conversations. Tweetdeck has a whole suite of features, more than I can mention here, but I highly recommend testing it out, it's an awesome tool and it's completely free.

2. Tweet Consistently Each Day

To be productive with Twitter you have to use it, but we all know that Twitter can be a time hog so you have schedule your time wisely.  I make a point of scheduling time each day to tweet, in fact the night before I'll make a list of things I want to tweet about and tweet those things over the course of the next day.  

A big time save for me is using SocialOomph. SocialOomph is another free tool that lets me schedule my tweets in advance. When using socialOomph I'll typically load it first thing in the morning with Tweets I'm interested in making that day.  These could be things like my latest blog posts, reviews I've done or interesting sites I've come across. 

But I don't load it and forget it.  I'll use Tweetdeck to keep an eye on things and occasionally interact with those that re-tweet, pose questions or comments back to me.

3. Make Your Tweets Useful

Don't send tweets just for the sake of tweeting. Make your tweets useful for your followers.  They follow you because they expect good information and insight from you so do your best to give it to them.

If twitter frustrates you and you're not sure what to tweet about there are plenty of sites that offer ideas, however I've been most successful with Tweeting useful links and asking for feedback. I'll also tweet a joke or a fascinating fact now and then and if I happen to read a really great article or blog post, I'll tweet about it and ask for thoughts.

Also if you write a post or article tweet about it as well. I'll also ask for a recommendation or pose questions for others to comment on.  Topsy is another handy tool where you can type in your twitter name and you'll see all your Tweets.  Look for the tweets you've made that have gotten the most re-tweets or the most attention.  You can also do this for others and learn from what they are doing.

One thing you don't want to do is tweet the same messages over and over again, that's not how to Twitter effectively. Unless your followers really love you it won't take much for them to unfollow you if they get tired of your redundancy.  Remember that your potential followers are looking at the quality and quantity of your tweets so give them a reason to follow you and make your tweets worthwhile and insightful.

If you're just using Twitter.com by itself it's hard to grasp the potential of the tool, in fact it's not really twitter itself that does the hard work, it's the tools that people have created that expand on the Twitter functionality.

For example, did you know you can use Twitter as a timer?  You can also use it for polls and surveys. You can find out which tweets helped you gain or lose followers, you can turn yourself into a social networking power and lots more. These things are all done with Twitter tools and applications, there are tons of them.  

If you are using Twitter now chances are you're not using it as productively as you could, you're probably even wasting time and getting less benefit.  Fortunately, David Perdew has made public The ‘My Twitter Toolbox’ membership site at an affordable $5 a month. Members have access to more than 235+ Twitter applications for things like improving twitter ranking, target your marketing efforts, expanding your network and a lot more. They find the tools, show you what they do and how to use them. It's one stop shopping for how to Twitter more productively and creating profits with your tweets.

Happy Tweeting!