I repeatedly hear horror stories from small business owners of how they hired someone to oversee / manage their Website or social media profiles, and then find out after the person flakes out that they don’t have access to their accounts.

This is because the vendor opened accounts using their own name rather than the business owner’s name. Or, the vendor didn’t send the business owner the login and password information and then skipped town.

Here’s how to easily prevent this from happening to you:

1. Open accounts or set up social media profiles yourself and then send the login information to your vendor.

2. If you agree to let your vendor open accounts for you, stipulate in the contract that accounts must be opened using your name / business name and that all login information must be sent to you within eight hours of the accounts being opened.

Being in control of your own Web hosting, WordPress login, social media profiles, and other account information ensures that you own and control your content / marketing assets. If something terrible should happen, you’re not left scrambling for login information — something that happens more frequently than most people realize.

Do you have a horror story of how someone you know — or perhaps you — lost access to your Website or social media accounts? Post it here!

I became a student of how to effectively network at business functions when I met my good friend Mac McIntosh in 2001.

Mac, I discovered, was the consummate face-to-face networker and was a joy to watch. When I bumped into him at local marketing events, he would be quick to introduce me to influential people in the room.

Instead of handing out a business card, Mac always had something of value — a copy of his newsletter, his little calendar card you can tuck into your wallet, etc.

Most important, he always amazed me with the details he remembered about people.

I remember thinking, “Man, I want to be like him!”

So I read lots of books, such as Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and Endless Referrals.

I repurposed my online newsletter articles to make them look like pages from a magazine and would hand those out versus my business card. I even took my online newsletter and made it a print publication for a couple of years — and would hand that out, too. (It also made a great direct mail piece.)

I got to know people and tried hard to connect faces with names. (That’s my one failing. I don’t remember people’s names but I always seem to remember their details.)

I made myself useful and volunteered for committees.

It worked. I went from not knowing a single soul when I moved to the east coast in 1998 to having the extensive network I enjoy today.

You can find lots of information about social media and the new marketing rules, but here is the one simple truth:

The same good manners you used when you networked face-to-face still hold true when you network online.

• Be polite and charming.
• Have a firm handshake.
• Look people in the eye.
• Be generous and introduce people to others.
• Become known as someone who refers people to others — it will come back to you in spades.
• Don’t interrupt the conversation in order to talk about yourself.
• Ask lots of questions.
• Be helpful by directing people to information / resources.
• Dress appropriately.
• Know your alcohol limits — i.e. don’t embarrass yourself.
• Hand write your thank-you notes — people will remember this thoughtful detail.
• Don’t air your dirty laundry or speak ill of others.

A good rule of thumb for being an effective online networker is this: if you wouldn’t do it, say it, or wear it at an offline business function– or if your mother wouldn’t approve — then don’t do it online.

Do you have tips for successfully networking online? Post them here.

(Hat tip to Chris Koch @Ckhoster who inspired this post with his post about Facebook’s privacy disasters.

I deleted my Facebook profile months ago because I don’t trust the company or how it handles people’s personal data. My entire business life is online and it made me uncomfortable to add my personal life to the mix.

And too, I’m not egotistical enough to think you all care when I’m at the gym or what kind of Jane Austen heroine I’d be based on some personality test (for the record, I love Elizabeth Bennett, but then again, who doesn’t?).

HOWEVER! So many companies ask me about Facebook and how to use it for business, that I realized I had to bite the bullet and get back into it. So I made a compromise: I’m not accepting any Friend requests and am instead focusing on building a Fan page.

So here is the deal: I’d love to to use my own Fan page as a mini lab on how to build effective Fan pages for B2B.

If you have a great example of a B2B Fan page, post it in the comments below and/or add it to my DH Communications Fan Page Wall.

If you have ideas on how B2B companies should or should not use Fan pages, let me know that, too.

Let’s get a dialogue going from which all of us can benefit.

HubSpot’s Fan page is terrific. I especially like its Discussion tab where people can post questions and someone from HubSpot answers them. This type of direct engagement is exactly why a company should be practicing social media.

Nancy Lublin, the founder of Dress for Success and the CEO of DoSomething, wrote a thought-provoking article, “Let’s Hear it for the Little Guys,” for the April issue of Fast Company.

In it she talks about why we should focus on the followers of visionary thought leaders.

“I think we’ve got it all wrong,” she writes. “We’ve overdone this whole leadership/founder/entrepreneur thing. And we’re not spending nearly enough time crediting the folks who turn all that visionary stuff into tangible reality: the chief operating officers, the mid-level managers, the staffers. If the word didn’t have a pejorative tinge to it, I guess you’d call them followers.

“The world needs people who can follow intelligently. Good followers ask questions. They probe their leaders. They crunch the numbers to ensure that their visionary boss’s gorgeous plan actually works.”

For over a year now I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m not hard-wired to “think different.” I’m definitely not a Steve Jobs, Seth Godin, or David Meerman Scott.

Once I read Lublin’s article, however, I realized that the world needs people like me — those of us who implement others’ vision.

Lublin calls us “followers.” I call us “pragmatic implementators.” We’re the ones in the marketing trenches.

When I give presentations on social media, SEO, and Web marketing to groups, I find myself answering very, very basic questions.

“What’s ‘viral marketing’?” a corporate communications manager once whispered in my ear. She was too embarrassed to ask the question openly.

“How do I open a Twitter account and post things?” people ask constantly.

“How do I use Facebook for business?”

“I heard meta tags are dead. Why do I need to optimize my site?”

“How do I leave a comment on a blog? And, do I even need a blog?”

Visionary thought-leaders are wonderful. But someone needs to teach people not only how to fish but how to string the pole and bait the hook.

Taking someone’s vision, breaking it down into bite-size chunks and action items people can actually implement takes real skill — and patience.

You have to show people how the “vision” works in language they understand so that they “get it” in about 10 seconds.

The best part of when I give presentations is when I hear a collective “ahhhh” from the group after I’ve demonstrated some how-to. “Oh my gosh!” someone will say. “You make this so easy! Thank you!”

I’m a real fan of visionary thought-leaders. We’d wouldn’t advance without them. They push the envelope and get us to stretch in ways we hadn’t thought about.

But after reading Lublin’s article, I realized I needed to take pride in being a pragmatic implementator — especially when I get an email like this from Marketing Coordinator Rochelle Otterstrom at Burnett + Company, LLP :

“I’ve implemented some of the web SEO strategies taught at the IGAF Marketing Conference by Dianna Huff. Our Google ranking has increased, we’ve received more calls citing our website as the referral, and our Hubspot website grade has improved! Even better, I received kudos from my firm’s Partners.”

Woot!

The world needs us pragmatic implementators, too. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?

Network Solutions has been running a radio spot advertising $4.99 Websites, an ad that makes me want to scream.

I want to scream because I get so many calls from small business owners who are pulling out their hair. They’re not getting any traffic, they can’t find their site in Google, and no one is calling them.

Half the time it’s because they’ve fallen prey to these sales pitches.

People, here is the simple truth: Go with a $4.99 Website and you’ll get $4.99 worth of results.

Think about that for a minute. If you’re a manufacturing company with over $1 million in revenues each year, you need to generate XX number of calls and emails to generate that $1 million (or more) year after year.

People are online searching, interacting, reading, emailing, chatting, Tweeting, blogging, video watching, and Facebooking.

Doesn’t it make sense to put your money where your customers are?

Yet I meet people all the time who will spend more money on a daily cup of coffee than they will developing a Website that attracts new customers.

Spending the equivalent of a Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato isn’t going to get you a site that helps you generate $1 million in business — or even a few hundred thousand.

That’s because a $4.99 Website doesn’t even begin to cover the costs associated with successfully marketing your business online, including:

1. Custom Web design — The problem with using those templated, one-size-fits-all Websites offered by all-in-one “Web solutions providers” is that you end up with a a cheap ugly site that looks just like all the other businesses using that cheap ugly template.

Your business is unique and as such, your site should incorporate your brand, your message, and even your own photographs.

Your Website is also your virtual storefront. I don’t know about you, but when I’m out in the real world, I can tell instantly whether or not a business is doing well — I just look at its store front. Either I want to walk in — or I walk away.

Your Website is the same. Don’t scare people away with crappy design.

For great design, you can call Rachel Cunliffe at Cre8d Design who specializes in WordPress, Jim Somers at Sonora DesignWorks, Matthew Nelson at Digital Marketing Frontier, or Mike Smith, a Web developer.

2. Search engine optimization — Forget all the crap you’ve heard about putting keywords in a “meta tag.” Google is constantly changing and adjusting to marketplace revolutions, including Twitter, Facebook, and video, and what was true yesterday isn’t true today.

If you want people to find your site in the search engines, you’ll need to hire an SEO firm who knows what it’s doing. You can call someone like me, or Jill Whalen at High Rankings, Andy Komack or Derek Edmond at Komarketing Associates, or Susan O’Neill at @Website Publicity. (I know all of these people and how they work and *highly* recommend them.)

3. Content, content, content — Your Website is a dynamic entity that needs to breathe and grow. You help it grow by constantly creating new content: blogs, e-books, white papers, reports, guides, videos, podcasts, e-newsletters, articles, Webinars, etc.

Ignore this step and you are hosed. It’s that simple.

4. Social media — You use social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, YouTube, Google Buzz, etc. to alert your customers, fans, followers, influencers, and others that you have new content.

These people pass your content on their fans, followers, influencers and others — driving traffic and building links to your site.

Ignore this step — and step #1 — and your site will wither and die no matter how much great content you have.

5. Time — Whether you do all of this yourself, hire an experienced online marketing person for your team or outsource it, marketing your Website takes time. Lots of time.

Web marketing is changing constantly. Last year at this time we didn’t have Google Buzz or Facebook’s new “I like” feature. Matt Cutts hadn’t yet said that Google is looking to see if sites have video — and ranking them accordingly. Smart phones were cool but marketers didn’t really see that mobile marketing is dramatically changing how we all approach the Web.

Sure, you can spend $4.99 and build yourself a cheap Website. But if had the same $4.99, I’d buy a cup of coffee and then sit down to write my resume — because relying on a cheap Website to grow my business would essentially mean I’d be out of business.

Had to take my car in for its service this morning and while paying, chatted up the service rep by telling him why I like their waiting room: It’s clean, you get free coffee and it has WiFi.

The rep said, “Oh, is the WiFi working today? We get slammed by people when the router is down — people really want it.”

My marketing antennae picked up . . . “How do you know that?” I asked.

“Surveys. We get bonuses based on 100 percent customer satisfaction rates and when our WiFi is down, people give us less than a 100 percent rating. I’m personally losing thousands of dollars in bonuses!”

As a customer and a marketer, I found this little interchange fascinating. I just assumed that people would downgrade the facility based on cleanliness or whether or not one’s vehicle was properly repaired.

By surveying people, however, this dealership learned that WiFi is also an important benefit.

So it’s surprising to me that since management knows this, they don’t move heaven and earth to ensure the router works — all the time. (When I asked if they needed an IT referral, the guy said they had an IT guy, he just hadn’t gotten around to figuring out why the router wasn’t working.)

What can you learn from this interchange?

1. Survey your customers frequently to ensure your service and/or products are up to snuff.

2. If responses reveal a problem, fix it! Nothing is worse than asking customers how you can do something better and then ignoring suggestions.

3. Don’t purposely strive for less than 100% satisfaction ratings so that you don’t have to pay bonuses. Your employees will become jaded.

Does your dealer or repair person have a waiting room? What do you like or dislike about it?