In many companies, what you do during work hours is totally their business. For this reason, social media sites have been blocked in the office. Though there have been a lot of differing ideas weather this should be done, many companies agree that it is in the best interests of the company to ban these sites.

You would think that this being so, there is nothing that the company can do if you spend your free time Facebooking your rants and raves. Think again:

Damian O’Keefe, a former employee of The Good Guys in Townsville, was dismissed after using Facebook to post an expletive-filled rant against a manager on his day off.

Fair Work Australia heard that O’Keefe’s employer sacked O’Keefe after interpreting his comments as a threat to operations manager Kelly Taylor.

What do you think? Did Damian deserve to be fired? After all, he was doing this on his day off, at home! The fact is the barrier between personal and company is narrowing and fast. Do companies have the right to use what is done in an employees personal time as ground for dismissal?

There should be clear rules about this or else a lot of injustice will happen. Companies ought to have clear rules and regulations about what is expected of them when it comes to using social media in and out of the office.

Having a clear policy is the only way for there to exist harmony between employee and employer. Everybody should understand what is expected of them.

Read more about this here.

Randi Zuckerberg, who is director of marketing at Facebook and also the sister of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg — is leaving the company after six years to start a new media firm to help companies become more social.

The question on everyone’s minds now is how will this affect Facebook? Randi-Mark’s sister has made very big contributions to Facebook and can definitely be said to be one of the pillars that has brought the company to where it is.

Randi plans to start her own company focused on the media trends underway. This will allow her to take on many clients but we really hope she doesn’t include Google + on her list or this will be very disloyal thing to do.

What did Mark have to say about all this? Well, no comment was made from Mark so we really don’t know how her brother feels about Randi’s resignation.

Mark better find a good Marketing director to take his sister’s place and hope Facebook keeps its current rank. The fact is, this change may be just what other networks need to get a little ahead of this giant company.

As for the other social networking sites, this new development may be viewed as a golden opportunity to get ahead.

Read more here.

A social media monitoring tool allows a brand to control multiple social media profiles from a single source. Through utilizing such software, a brand can identify key influences that interact with the brand on a regular basis, and can look to accommodate them into future social strategies. Even if a brand isn’t looking to incorporate such users in future strategies, they could discuss with them what they would like to see in future campaigns, as these users are likely to be well-versed in what may appear most appealing to a brand’s follower.

It really would be of no use for you to have all those social media sites but not know how so use them. If  you are a brand,  you can use social media to the full by monitoring your fans well. There is a lot of information that you can get from these fans. In a way, getting viewpoints from your fans can be a steering wheel driving you in the right direction.  This especially applies to brands who really need to carefully examine their objectives before implementing any long or short term goals.

How can social media monitoring help in this regard then? Well, with a tool like this, you’ll be able to know how your fans are reacting to whatever strategies you are implementing at the moment. In turn, you will be able to make adjustments according to what works for you. Social media monitoring tools are able to flag comments and posts that may have specific words or phrases attached to them. This way, you’ll never have to blindly do things that you may regret in the future. This is something that you don’t get with the usual marketing strategies that you may be doing.

If there’s one thing you must love about social media marketing. You always have the chance to put light on your pathway and change directions whenever necessary.

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First of all, is can and should you trust anyone when it comes to the internet? I mean, we all know whatever goes on there stays there so why bother? Well, the fact doesn’t change that Facebook and Google are two of the most effective marketing tools a company can use out there. Whether you find them safe or not- if you want to compete, YOU MUST USE THEM!

This being said, the question is which of the two deserves to be trusted more? Well, many would answer Google and I do agree with them. Think about these simple facts that really make you think twice before you trust Facebook.

• The man behind the book. When you compare the men behind Google and Facebook, it’s quite clear who deserves to be trusted more. I mean, how can you compare the ‘college guy’ Mark Zuckerburg to the two MEN who founded Google? It’s discriminating or anything, it’s just that it matters. Facebook is basically a ‘college project’ that happened to become popular. The only reason why businesses seem to flock to it is just because of the audience it’s been able to reach-nothing more.
• The trend in privacy settings. We all heard about the issue that came about because Facebook added the new face tagging thing without informing users first. Now if you ask me, someone who can do those things behind my back really is’t someone I’d like to trust. Compare that with Google, well let’s say they’ve never been any privacy issues.

Whatever happened to being fair, giving the benefit of the doubt and not judging you may ask? When it comes to privacy, you really have to take sides. Your reputation is at stake-that’s definitely not something you’d want to gamble with.

Read more here.