Reaching out once again to the young technically savvy voters who helped him get elected, President Obama  has officially moved his Facebook page and his Twitter account,  @BarackObama, into campaign mode.

These two social networking sites will be featured in the 2012 campaign logo. The president plans to fully use social media in his political campaign. He currently has 8.6 million followers on Twitter, and more than 21.6 million Facebook fans. Will using these sites be a good idea?

There is no doubt that social media can get you fans and spread news in places  you can’t go. The ‘down side’ though is you really can’t control people’s comments and posts. The president or should we say his ‘moderators’ will be in for some big ‘reputation management’.  Getting yourself connected in these sites as a prominent person will have effects.

The good thing that may make a huge difference is the president’s ‘promise’ to personally post some tweets and updates himself which are to be signed BO. Everyone loves that personal touch. Weather this use of social media in politics will be successful is still to be seen. So far, politicians who have got involved in these sites have had very big problems.

Read more here.

Many Facebook users can relate to the fact that this social networking site simply isn’t what it used to be.  If you think about it, the reason you may have had for joining this site is probably to keep in contact with friends. You wanted to have that ‘inside peek’ on what’s happening in their lives since you couldn’t be with them physically. Everything just seemed to be so simple  with this site. This idealism is changing and fast. Users are leaving Facebook for good. Why?

“People are becoming aware of the limitations of Facebook’s semi-public, ‘all of your friends under one roof’ system,” said Dr Bernie Hogan of the Oxford Internet Institute. “As soon as mum joins Facebook, people have to make sure Facebook is mum-safe. If a teacher becomes friends with a student on Facebook, they have to make sure the content is appropriate for their role as a teacher. What that does is water down one’s capacity to fully express oneself in this space.”

Since the site has become extremely popular, it’s becoming very hard to limit the people who you want to interact with. You have to really think twice before posting anything on these sites: What will Mum say if she saw this? Is this really something I want people to know? Will this affect my reputation? All these questions are making Facebook somewhat of a hassle to use. You don’t have the freedom to post ‘whatever you want’ anymore.

Then is the ‘keeping up with your appearance online’ problem. With everyone able to see your photos, comparing is something that comes naturally. So you end up spending too much time ‘beating’ other people’s poses. This social competition online can be depressing if you are on the ‘loosing side’. It’s like if you aren’t popular on FB , you’re nobody.

Other than this is the issue of privacy. With the increase of cyber attacks, there is no assurance that your personal information won’t get into the wrong hands. Once it’s out there,  you really can’t control where it ends up. With the constant changes in the features on Facebook such as the  recent issue of face tagging, people don’t feel safe on Facebook any longer.

The result? People figure if you really are friend’s you’d keep in touch the old fashioned way.

Read more on this here.

The founders of today’s common social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn had absolutely no idea of the impact these social networking sites would have. What started out as a simple way for college students to keep in touch has become a worldwide network connecting not only individuals but businesses and organizations. This unexpected popularity has brought about a very important issue: SECURITY.

The ‘safety’ that users felt on these sites is slowly becoming questionable. These sites have become the places hackers and other ‘cyber criminals’ find their prey. The bottom line is everyone-moderators of these sites included must pay more attention to their online security.   You think your social networking site has done all they can to ‘ensure your safety?’

Security researcher Rishi Narang recently discovered a security flaw with LinkedIn’s use of cookies and, as a result, the site reduced the persistence of cookies it uses to identify users. Patches and updates from the social networks themselves occur on a daily basis in an effort to combat crucial security flaws. As of the writing of this article, in 2011, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have undergone updates 528 times, with over 50 updates occurring on Facebook alone.

The fact is no matter how hard owners of these sites may be trying, it will be hard to keep up to pace with hackers.  Apart from that is the problem of confidential information finding its way to wrong hands. An example of this is of  Scott McClellan, the chief technologist and interim vice president of engineering for HP’s new cloud services business. Scott ‘carelessly’ posted the company’s plans on his LinkedIn page which wasn’t supposed to go public yet.  Though the comment was later removed, the damage had clearly been done.

How can a ‘safer’ social networking site be created then? No doubt, these sites are doing all they can to try and update their settings. As users though, there is much that can be done to try and minimize the chances of becoming a victim of these cyber attacks.

Being careful before clicking on something our friends’ have posted will be a big step. We may be trusting by nature but clicking on unknown links may open the way for hackers to access our information.

Another factor has to do with confidentiality. Though you do have the right to rant and rave on your page, avoid mentioning things that you don’t have the ‘right’ to share. This is especially true when it comes to company policies or updates. Keep your personal social networking sites PERSONAL.

Keep yourself well-informed as to updates these sites have made security-wise.  You may have to update your profiles’ security settings to keep yourself protected.

For more information, read the source article.

Photo from seo-services.com

You own a particular company or brand and want to get a username or domain with your company’s exact name only to get the ‘username unavailable’ or ‘domain already in use’! Though there may be a chance that there really is a company with a name like yours somewhere out there, usually, so-called ‘social media squatters’ are the culprits.

These squatters may come in two categories:those who really like your brand and want to promote it or those who just liked the sound of it and got the username or domain. What can be done about these squatters? You do have the right to the name it being your business but in the digital world ‘first come, first serve’ is followed.  Is there anything that can be done

Request a user name. Facebook and Twitter are careful in allowing just anyone claim user names that belong to well-known brands. You can send them a request. The only problem is that it may take a long time to be processed. You will have to give some proof that you are indeed the ‘owner’ of this brand.

How about if that name has already been taken somehow by a squatter? Then it will depend on which kind of squatter has it. For those who really are genuinely interested in promoting your brand, it is possible that you contact them and come up with some agreement. You may for example offer to compensate them if they do a good job.

As for the ‘real’ squatters who carelessly used your brand, you can offer to buy the name or domain from them. Most will be willing to do so for a reasonable amount of money.

Getting a desired username can be challenging or straightforward depending on the situation. Sometimes, you need to use a hammer, and somethings it’s just a matter of asking nicely.

Read the complete article here.