Touching on Facebook, and LinkedIn for that matter, I recently installed a useful add-on to Outlook called the Social Connector.  It will show you what people have been saying in both Facebook and LinkedIn, while using the program Outlook.

I wasn’t sure at first how useful it might be and had to play around with where to have it set up in Outlook so it’s not using up valuable real estate on my screen. I now only have it showing when I’m reading individual emails and responding to them.  It has helped highlight things I might want to know about and allows me to comment, respond or give advice to individuals.  Particularly if I’m not connected to them online via those networks or not present in those networks when they make a post about something.

However, what it has highlighted is what people think and say when they think others can’t see them.  Case in point:  Someone contacted me recently to find out about joining my VA network. Trouble was when I went to reply to their email I saw all their Facebook commentary to their friends and some of it was not pretty at all. I’m not sure I would even want to be working with them.  Were they aware that their foul writing was on such public display?  Probably not. But it highlights the importance of what you write and publish online.  There are all sorts of tools interconnecting today so what you think is private might not be so private after all – especially if the email address you use for business is also connected to your Facebook ‘private’ account for example.  The Social Connector displays all when I click on an email you’ve sent to me.

If you’re in business online and you use different networking tools, doesn’t matter if you’re connected to family and friends only, or further, what you write is on display and can be viewed at some stage or another.  We all need to be more strategic in the way we network, who we network with, what email addresses we use for different systems and so on.  Worth thinking about.