The Social Path

Could your employer confiscate your LinkedIn account if you left?

You might have heard the legal wrangling over a company that wants control of an ex-employee’s Twitter feed, but here’s a story that will really motivate you to beef up your passwords.

A company called Sawabeh Information Services is claiming it should own LinkedIn accounts used by at least two former employees. According to TechDirt, Sawabeh argues that these LinkedIn profiles are akin to rolodexes that were developed on company time.

The firm has already confiscated the account used by former partner Dr. Linda Eagle (who had apparently let other coworkers manage her account, which meant her password was easy for the company to access), but LinkedIn denied Sawabeh’s attempts to take over the account of another ex-employee.

While this debate is part of a far more complex legal battle over trade secrets and corporate backstabbing, it could end up setting an ominous precedent if Sawabeh is given control of employee LinkedIn profiles just because they were used for work.

As tech lawyer Venkat Balasubramani notes, though, there’s also the issue of LinkedIn’s terms of service, which restrict personal account access to the person who created the profile. That means Sawabeh could win in court but find the LinkedIn account closed for TOS violations.

For now, best to keep those passwords to yourself, talk to your HR manager for clarity on your company's policies and just generally avoid working for places that treat business in the information age like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

David Griner is the Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Photo credit: TOKY Branding and Design on Flickr.

Klout adds Linkedin, making your social score professional.

This week, social media scorecard Klout added LinkedIn activity to it's calculations, which already included Facebook and Twitter. It seems like a move to legitimize Klout as professionally relevant and not just a bragging-rights tool for self-promotional Twitterati.

Since Klout started getting buzz in 2010, social media professionals have been debating its value as barometer of influence. I've been pretty skeptical myself about how Klout determines its score for Twitter usage and impact.

However, as a way to quantify the strength of your professional network and online résumé, now that the tool factors in LinkedIn? That's a service I can get behind.

The clear winner from this partnership isn't necessarily Klout, though. By becoming part of the Klout scoring engine, LinkedIn suddenly got a much-needed game mechanic that might motivate many of us to actually start using LinkedIn for something other than accepting network requests.

Klout's blog explains that your score is not based on the amount of time spent logged in to LinkedIn or your number of connections, but the quality of it all, it will obviously serve as a boost to the service.

You can check out the Klout blog to learn more about the addition. I'm curious to hear your perspective on Klout, LinkedIn and how this partnership of sorts could affect the popularity of both services.

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

What people really think about social media sites.

We all have our own opinions of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, but how can you tell if you're in the majority? Here's one way I decided to try and find out.

Brand Tags, created by digital innovator Noah Brier, asks visitors to look at a company's logo, then type in the first word that comes to mind. Below, you'll find the results for some of the Web's most popular social resources. The larger the word, the more often it was used to describe that site.

      

      

      

So what do you think? Pretty fair summaries? Or does it seem like these sites have some brand image work to do?

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Day 21: Set social network boundaries and stick to them.

 

Throughout January, The Social Path is running daily tips on how to improve your social life — online, at least. Click here to learn more.

Etiquette quiz: We just met at a business lunch. Is it cool for me to friend you on Facebook that afternoon? What about LinkedIn? Twitter? Flickr?

The answer, of course, is that there is no universal answer. It’s up to each of us to set our rules of engagement on each social network, then politely but firmly enforce them.

No, you don’t need a written policy or pre-emptive disclaimer, although that might be helpful if you find that your reclusiveness on a certain site turns some colleagues sour.

To be honest, I had all but given up any hope of having a personal space online. By late 2009, it just seemed hypocritical to promote social networking by day, then deny friend requests from the people I met along the way.

But it’s easier than you’d think to shake off this feeling of overexposure. All it takes is a personal policy, one that will save you from having to decide each friend request on a case-by-case basis.

On her fantastic blog at SpinSucks.com, Arment Dietrich CEO Gini Dietrich does a great job capturing the internal struggle of drawing lines between personal and professional networking

“If you know me well, you know I want to be liked by everyone. And you also know I have trouble saying no. So when I perceive I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or left a bad taste in their mouth, I wonder how I could have handled the situation differently. At the same time, I am (in my wise old age) finally learning I need to have some boundaries.”

Gini then goes on to describe her personal boundaries, which are pretty well in line with mine:

• Facebook profile is for people you know in real life
• Facebook Fan Page is for anyone interested in talking about professional issues.
• LinkedIn is for known business associates
• Twitter is pretty much wide open, assuming you’re not spammy or weird.

Again, there’s nothing universal about these rules. You might see Facebook as a professional forum, one where you’ll only ever post work-friendly updates. Personally, I like having Facebook as a place to talk openly with friends, family and colleagues, though I’ve admittedly stretched the definition of each depending on the individual.

So take a few moments to jot down — or at least think about — each of your social networks and your personal rules for admission.

I assure you, this is not a limiting process. It’s a liberating one.

You’ll feel more comfortable and empowered in each space, and you’ll be able to focus your professional efforts accordingly.

If LinkedIn is your business-life hub, start using it as such. Get serious about posting your professional content there and engaging your network. If Facebook is a private space, boot out those random party-crashers and give your privacy settings a good review to ensure you’re not mistakenly sharing yourself with the world.

Sure, you might still upset a few people if they feel slighted that you ignored their friend request, but more often than not, they’ll forget they ever sent the invite.

If someone really wants an explanation for having to stay outside the velvet rope, you’ll have a clear answer that they’re bound to respect. If they don’t, they probably wouldn’t make a good friend anyway.

Estimated time needed: 15 minutes to think about, a lifetime to enforce.
Benefits: A more comfortable and productive social networking experience.

(Oh, and no, today's photo is not of me, but it does crack me up.)
Photo credit: The Enabler on Flickr.

Day 14: Recommend three great people on LinkedIn.

Throughout January, The Social Path is running daily tips on how to improve your social life — online, at least. Click here to learn more.

In just a few years, we've become a consumer culture fueled by peer reviews. Our movie rentals, our travel destinations, our flat-screen TVs -- each is determined largely by the ratings and reviews we browse online.

But what about our peers themselves? Until LinkedIn came along, it would have been strange to imagine "reviewing" a person, especially one you know and trust. But now it seems strange how often we don't do it.

In fact, recommending peers on LinkedIn has even had its own backlash, largely due to what could best be described as "reference farming." When people (usually job-hunters) put out a call for recommendations, the results can be high in quantity but debatable in quality.

Last year, digital strategy guru Jeremiah Owyang wrote that he was done writing LinkedIn recommendations because he felt they too often were seen as "puffery:"

"Although I’ve only given honest recommendations in LinkedIn, I won’t be giving anymore recommendations on that platform (at least for the foreseeable future), instead, I’ll use my blog and Twitter to provide them in a more organic area where there aren’t obvious filters – making the recommendations count even more.  The challenge of course is finding them will not be easy."

I can relate to Jeremiah's concerns, and I'm sure he was being hit up for such reviews far more often than I am. 

But I prefer a different solution: Recommend those who deserve it, not just those who ask for it. 

That's why today, I'd like you to think about three people who've added considerable value to your professional life. Who are the unsung heroes, the selfless sharers who would be unlikely to ask for your praise?

Why just three? Why not three a day every day for the rest of 2010? Because I think it's important to be selective and really prove that your recommendations are not given lightly.

Interestingly enough (and I swear I didn't know this when I set out on today's goal), LinkedIn's team itself recommended the same thing in response to Jeremiah's 2009 post:

There were dozens of names that came to mind for me, but for a variety of reasons, I picked a pretty diverse pool of social media minded peers to recommend:

• Andrea Hill, Director of Social Media and Interactive Technology at Worldways Social Marketing. Why recommend Andrea? Because, like my other picks, she is far more focused on learning and sharing than she is on promoting herself. Also, maybe it'll help motivate some folks to go check out her presentation at South By Southwest.
• Scott Hepburn, PR pro and principal at Media Emerging. Why recommend Scott? Because his blog and Twitter conversations have consistently provided some of the best forums for how social media is changing the PR industry.
• Michael Bertoldi, freelance copywriter. Why recommend Michael? While still in the early phases of his marketing career, Michael has become one of the most active social media enthusiasts in my high-techy hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. I personally feel Michael is one great opportunity away from truly establishing himself in the field, and if there's even a small chance my recommendation could help bring that opportunity about, then it's more than worth the few minutes of my time.

Who are your three to recommend? Be sure to let us know in the comments.

Estimated time needed: 30-60 minutes.

Benefits: Paying it forward within your professional network.

Related post: Flesh out your LinkedIn public profile.

Photo credit: LinkedIn headquarters shot by Jerry Luk on Flickr.

Day 1: Flesh out your LinkedIn public profile.

Throughout January, The Social Path is running daily tips on how to improve your social life — online, at least. Click here to learn more.

Just about everyone with a work ethic and a clean pair of pants is on LinkedIn these days.

Most often, the site is used as a digital résumé more than a regularly updated social network, and that's fine. But one area that users tend to neglect (probably because they never see it themselves) is the public profile.

If you want people to find you on LinkedIn, you'll need a good public profile. If you've never done much to build it out, yours probably looks like this:

Expanding your public profile is exceptionally easy, because you're really just recycling information that's already included in the profile that's visible to those in your network.

Just select which bits of info you want to share with the world:

When you're done, your public profile should look something like this:

That's it! Quick, easy and painless.

Estimated time needed: 15 minutes.
Benefits: Improved search presence and continuity for your online identity.

Coming tomorrow: A simple new take on both blogging and bookmarking.