From the Desk of Janet Barclay

The Independent recently published an article, Public lives: Does the internet know too much about us? which begins by illustrating the volumes of information that can be learned about an individual simply by Googling his or her name. However, unlike other articles on this subject, author Michael Savage does not portray this as something to be alarmed about. Instead, he says:

… some out there are realising that the dawn of the transparent age should be welcomed, rather than feared. It could end up making us all more tolerant, less uptight, and more popular. As all the barriers between our public and private personas come tumbling down online, we may well realise that it’s not such a bad thing. Digital curtain-twitching could be the means for creating a more relaxed, honest and unashamedly open society.

There was a time, not so very long ago, that I felt like I was one person when I was at work, a different person with family, another person with friends, and so on, and at that time the thought of all these people from different corners of my world seeing the same side of me would have made me quite uncomfortable. Since starting my own business, I feel like I’m just me, no matter where I am or who I’m with. The guest list for my 50^th birthday party included family members, former co-workers (from different jobs), and business contacts – something I would never have done in the past. Had I not gone through this transformation in my own life, I might not be as receptive to Savage’s comments, but the explosion of social networking seems to have occurred at just the right time in my life, and I don’t worry at all about the "wrong" person seeing something on my blog or on one of my online profiles.

I think it’s wonderful to be able to see what the people in my business network do when they aren’t working, and if they also enjoy seeing photos of my travels or other activities, that’s great too. Certainly, there are some things in life that should remain private, and common sense should be exercised when posting photographs and personal information on one’s blog, Facebook profile, or elsewhere online. If you wouldn’t want a client or prospective employer to see something, you should probably consider sharing it with your friends via email or some other way.

One of the most interesting parts of the article was the suggestion that in the future, people will look at you suspiciously if you’ve kept a low online profile, and wonder what you’re trying to hide. Tom Ilube, chief executive of the online profile management firm Garlik, said:

If you were an employer in five years’ time recruiting someone and looked for them online only to find nothing, you’d think, "what an odd sort of person. What kind of person would engineer their teenage lives in such a way as to remove their digital footprint?"

I don’t think we’re there yet – I know quite a few people who are reluctant to join social networking websites, and others who join but refuse to post a picture or anything terribly interesting – but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Savage and Ilube are right! Would you have predicted five years ago that the Internet would have evolved to where it is today?

In June, this blog was mainly devoted to sharing the interesting results of my recent online marketing and networking survey. If you operate an online business or use the Internet to promote your products or services, be sure to check them out!

Last month I also became a monthly contributor to the new Canadian Virtual Assistant Blog where I posted one of my "oldies but goodies" on Working Remotely.

Elsewhere, I’ve blogged about the following topics:

OnlineOrganizing.com - Technology as an Organizing Tool:

• Logging Your Mileage
• "Upcoming" Events
• Another Tool for Finding and Promoting Events Online
• Summertime, and the living is easy…

Introvert Retreat:

• Social Networking: Introversion vs. Extraversion
• Marketing Tips for the Introvert
• Interesting Facts About Introverts

I’ve also posted a new article, Market Your Own Business, and a book review of Time Management for Unmanageable People at OrganizedArticles.com.

Happy Reading!

I received a comment this week from Isabelle Mori of Change Therapy who has enjoyed reading the results of my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey, and is wondering about the demographics and online behaviours of the participants.

The survey results have been described in the following blog posts:

• The Status of Ezines
• Who Is Blogging?
• Reading Blogs
• Keeping Track of All Those Blogs
• The Wonderful World of Social Networks

This is really all the information I’ve gathered about the participants’ online behaviours, but I did ask the participants, Do you operate a home-based business? The responses were as follows:

I also asked, If you answered "Yes" to the above question, what type of business is it? and received the following replies:

The bolded categories were suggested answers; all others were supplied by the participants who chose "Other" and there is clearly some overlap there. The majority of my clients and regular contacts belong to the suggested professions, so it’s really not surprising that over 70% of the participants with home-based businesses fit into those categories.

This concludes this series of blog posts – I do hope you found it interesting and possibly even helpful as you develop your own online marketing and networking strategy.

You don’t have to know me very well to realize that I’m a big fan of Facebook and use it extensively for both business and personal reasons. However, one of my pet peeves is total strangers who send me friend requests with no explanation as to why it is to either of our benefits to connect. To me this type of activity has about as much value as attending a large networking event and running around and exchanging business cards with as many people as possible, hoping that sometime, somewhere, something may come of it.

I was therefore delighted to see Andrea J. Stenberg of The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur address this very subject in her recent blog post, How to Grow A Useful Facebook Network. In her post she explains how to build a targeted network of Facebook friends, how to approach strangers you wish to connect with, and how to build relationships with them once you have connected. In my opinion, this is a must read for anyone who uses Facebook for business networking. I may even send a link to it to people who send me UFOs (unidentified friend offers) in the future, instead of just clicking "Ignore". After all, just because they didn’t think to add a note doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be a good contact to have!

I’m going to steal a line from Andrea’s post and conclude by saying If you send me an invitation to become Friends on Facebook and mention you’re a reader of my blog, I promise to accept your invitation.

Once upon a time there was Ryze. Then there was LinkedIn. Then Facebook. Now it seems that every time you turn around, someone is inviting you to join a new social networking site. Deciding which ones to join and how much time to devote to this type of activity can be a real challenge, so in my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey, I asked participants how often they visit the sites I’ve heard the most about, and whether they regularly use any others. Here’s what I found out.

The numbers total more than 100%, because many people use more than one site.

It is not surprising that Facebook showed the highest number of users, considering that it was one of the main vehicles I used to get the word out about the survey. It‘s interesting to note that LinkedIn is the only other one to even come close to that number of users. What is also interesting, is the reported frequency of usage:

Facebook and LinkedIn are the only two that showed a relatively high number of weekly users, yet even there, Facebook is showing twice as many weekly visitors. Is it because people use Facebook for both business and personal reasons, or are there other factors at play?

Participants who answered "Other" were asked to specify which other sites they use, and the following answers were submitted:

Some of these sites don’t really fall under the same category as those listed in the survey, but I have included the information here to show how different people interpreted the question.

For some more interesting statistics about social networking, check out James Burchill’s recent blog post on Social Media and the Interactive Marketing Conference.

*This post was featured in the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival #7 and the LinkedIn Bloggers Carnival: July Edition.