The DailyFinance posted an article by Anthony Massucci about how social media may be making us less social — as in, we’re afraid to do or say anything that might end up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

In some cases, Massucci is correct.

If you cause trouble in your neighborhood, your bad behavior could end up on RottenNeighbor.com — your neighbor can film video of you and post it to this site. Yikes!

Or, a customer can record a customer service call that puts your company in a bad light and post it to the Internet — as AOL learned much to its chagrin.

Or even worse, your “off the cuff” (re: off the record) comment can become the shot heard ’round the world — as President Obama learned when he called Kayne West a jackass.

As Massucci points out, our behaviors can easily be recorded by others and posted for all to see/hear. So it pays to follow some common sense behaviors when it comes to social media:

1. THINK before you post — Platforms like Twitter and Facebook let you express yourself (and easily become addictive). You really don’t want to post that you’re leaving for vacation. Nor do you want to post that snarky comment about a customer.

In fact, I make it a policy to never post anything about customers unless I have their express permission to do so.

You’ll also want to keep TMI (too much information) posts to a minimum — as this information can come back to haunt you in terms of lost contracts and/or lost jobs.

2. Limit phone use in public — I’m rather amazed at how much *business* information I overhear from people talking on their mobile phones in public.

Because we can become so absorbed in the conversation, we don’t “see” the people around us (nor do we know them usually). So we gab away, and in the process we let out confidential information that by-standers can easily pick up — and use against us.

True story: my lawyer friend’s firm won a negotiation because one of the partners overhead the lawyer for the other side talking about the deal on his cell phone on the train. Her firm now has a policy that no one is allowed to discuss client cases on the phone in public.

3. Practice good old fashioned manners — I do think that social media and the Internet have made us all a little more rude. Graciousness seems to have been fallen by the wayside. Where we used to send lovely hand-written thank you notes, we can now SMS — “Thanks for dinner!”

Bad manners includes yelling at sales clerks, screaming at people while driving, and posting nasty comments to blogs under assumed names.

One thing I’ve committed to of late is being nice — to everyone. I tell the front desk people at the gym “thank you,” and “have a nice day.” I let drivers go ahead of me. I wait patiently while sales clerks wait on those ahead of me. I compliment other business owners on their marketing.

The benefit of this good cheer is that it makes me feel better — and people respond in kind.

It also means my bad behavior doesn’t end up on a social media site somewhere.

What do you think? Has social media made us more rude? Do we need to be more careful about how we present ourselves in public? Do you worry that your behavior at a party will end up on someone’s Facebook page?

Let me know!

(Hat tip to Dr. Helaine Smith (client) who sent me the DailyFinance article.)

When I give presentations and people ask if they should be on LinkedIn or Facebook or both, I tell them that both social networking sites fill a similar function but that the social “rules” are very different.

LinkedIn is like a professional meeting or face-to-face networking function. You know how to dress (no jeans or sexy clothing) and mingle with people.

You know that you don’t pick up chicken with your fingers or talk too much about yourself (the best networkers always ask lots of questions of the people to whom they’re talking).

In short, “business professional” is a mode of behavior and dress that we all know and feel comfortable with.

That’s why many people like LinkedIn — it feels comfortable and familiar.

Facebook, according to the anecdotal evidence I hear, causes anxiety. This is because Facebook is like attending a Saturday BBQ at your boss’s house.

The event itself brings up a whole host of questions for which the rules aren’t clear — especially if you’re in corporate or work for a conservative company:

Which clothes should you wear? For women, this is particularly tricky: can you wear the sexy sundress or should you stay with something more modest?

Can you eat that BBQ chicken and corn on the cob with your fingers — which can become pretty messy — or stick with something safe?

Should you drink?

Do you bring the spouse? The kids? The pet dog?

What do you talk about? Business? Personal? The books you’re reading? What if you don’t read and watch trashy reality TV shows instead? Is that something you want everyone to know?

Now I know many people use Facebook quite well for both business and pleasure — and that they’re able to keep their personal lives separate from their business lives via the judicious use of groups within Facebook.

I also know that people feel quite relieved when I tell them they really don’t have to use Facebook for business.

In fact, many people tell me they use it only to keep up with far-flung family and don’t use it for business — that’s why they use LinkedIn.

And some people even admit they don’t have a Facebook page at all.

Here’s the bottom line with regard to social media: Do what makes you feel comfortable.

Along that note, I decided to delete my Facebook profile altogether.

After reading The Power of Less, I decided it was time to simplify my life, including my online life.

So, I deleted my profile in order to stop worrying about the fact that I had a profile that I virtually ignored.

How do you use Facebook and/or LinkedIn — and how do you feel about each one? I’d love to hear your story.

Ambassador of Buzz for Grasshopper, Jonathan Kay, emailed me yesterday (July 27) to update me about the chocolate grasshopper campaign the company conducted in May 2009.

I’m really glad he did this because this campaign was a topic of discussion at our dinner table. My husband is in marketing/sales, too, and we spent a good half hour talking about how much each piece cost, including shipping by FedEx.

According to Jonathan, the campaign’s objective was simply to generate buzz and “spark a grassroots movement among the entrepreneurial community that would raise awareness of the brand, and get people interested in entrepreneurship” — not to get people to sign up for the company’s  Advanced Number service, which is something I originally posted about when I received my packet of grasshoppers.

Hence, the  campaign consisted of mailing out the chocolate grasshoppers and creating a video about “the power of entrepreneurship.”

The Grasshopper team spent months scouring the Internet looking for 5,000 of the most influential people with “buzz” around them — emphasis on “influential,” not entrepreneurs who might need the Advanced Number service.

Based on this simple objective, the campaign was a real success. You can read the full Chocolate Grasshopper case study for all of the numbers, but suffice to say, the campaign is a great example of how social media can drive awareness — and cost much, much less than one 30-second TV commercial:

Total campaign cost: $68,103

183,000+ page views for the Entrepreneurs Can Change the World video

51,700+ page views of Grasshoppers.com/idea

2,959 referrals from Twitter

1,664 referrals from Facebook

170 blog posts (according to Jonathan, I was one of the first people to post about the campaign)

Do note that the referrals from Twitter are higher than those from Facebook — Facebook may have more members, but Twitter, it appears, has greater reach.

One other thing to note — which the case study doesn’t cover: This is the second time (for me) that a company has followed up with me after I’ve written about them on this blog. (The first instance was when Brian Ellefritz, Cisco’s Director of Social Media Marketing, contacted me after I featured one of the company’s campaign videos.)

Follow-up with influential bloggers should be, if isn’t already, a social media best practice because you create good will, develop relationships, and increase the possibility for follow-up blog mentions.

Not only did I write an additional blog post about Cisco after talking one-on-one with Brian, but I’ve also have continued to use Cisco as a “what to do right” case study in presentations.

The same will now hold true for Grasshopper. You simply cannot buy that type of brand awareness — and it’s why social media is so effective. (And it’s also why companies must, must, must monitor what’s being said about them online because social media also drives negative awareness in the same huge way.)

One final note: because I was targeted as an “influential” (I’m truly honored!) and because I do consider myself an entrepreneur with vision, let me share my vision with you. It’s what drives me to get out of bed every morning:

I want to be a hands-on mom and give my son a great childhood while also helping my clients achieve their business objectives with results-oriented marketing communications consulting and copywriting.

What’s your vision?

I read lots of articles about why Twitter makes good business sense. However, I find few articles explaining why I don’t need it. Here are my top 10 reasons, in no particular order.

1. You don’t want to connect with the movers and shakers in your industry.

2. You don’t want the movers and shakers in your industry to connect with you.

3. You’re too busy to schmooze with the people you already know.

4. You don’t need to meet more people because your Rolodex is already huge.

5. You don’t want to understand how the “rock stars” such as Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott and Jeremiah Owyang think.

6. You really believe Twitter is all about what people are eating for breakfast or dinner.

7. You believe Twitter is a fad.

8. You prefer to get your news 24 hours after it happens.

9. You don’t need to be alerted to new industry reports, ground breaking research or articles.

10. You are G-d and everyone already knows you.

Feel free to add more reasons to this list.

Copywriter Bob Bly has an interesting discussion on his blog about a new social media report by Michael Stelzner.

While Bob’s post focuses on how social media is time consuming and delivers little ROI with regard to the time spent on it, he also states in one of his comments that social media advocates refuse to measure social media ROI by “bottom line” results. 

It’s true. I cannot tell you in terms of hard numbers how social media has benefited my business — only that it has (tremendously).

However, I realized this morning that we do many things that have “zero bottom line results” but which impact our businesses in ways we can’t even imagine.

Take face-to-face networking, for example. About five or so years ago, I attended a Business Marketing Association meeting in the Boston area in order to hear my good friend Mac McIntosh give a presentation.

At that meeting I met a MarCom Manager from a major tech company in the area. We kept in touch, connected on LinkedIn, and she signed up for my e-newsletter.

A year or so later, she moved to a new company and hired me for a project . . . and then another project . . . and then another. She was also instrumental in getting me into her company to give a presentation on B2B copywriting to her colleagues.

So this morning I’m sitting here doing a new proposal for another large tech company in the area, and as I was typing the person’s contact information into ACT!, and noting that she had been referred to me by this MarCom Manager I had met years ago, I had a real ephinany:

You simply cannot measure social media / social networking by traditional or “bottom line” measures.

Social media tools, such as Twitter, are similar to having a chat over a cup of coffee — or a first date. And as Mac is always saying, you can’t ask your customers to marry you on the first date because you’ll scare them away!

If I had asked the MarCom Manager if she was going to send me work while sitting at that BMA dinner meeting, do you think she would have hired me a year later? Hell no!

It’s the same for social media. You can’t expect people to send you “juicy fat contracts” simply because they’re following you on Twitter.

What happens with social media (and face-to-face networking) however, is that people get to know you. They learn how you think, how you present yourself, even a little of your values and business principles.

Over time, they connect more deeply with you and begin to either inquire about your services or refer others to you. And that is where the magic happens, as I realized this morning.

If you’re looking for social media to send you leads and contracts, you’ll be disappointed. If you use social media to connect with others and build new relationships, you’ll find results and success — plus a whole lot of satisfaction.

While eating lunch last December, I read the copy for a full page ad run by Tourneau, the luxury watch maker, for “pre-owned watches.”  Bemused by the term, “pre-owned watch,” I Twittered about the ad — and even ran some keyword search results.

Who knew that a luxury watch maker would know that people were actually looking for high-end “pre-owned watches”? (I sure didn’t!)

Fast forward to February . . . when I received an email from Melanie Nerenberg, the Director of Marketing for Tourneau.

She had gone from my Tweets to my  blog and had found both interesting — and long story short, we ended up meeting for lunch yesterday in New York.

Melanie gave me the grand tour of the Tourneau flagship store as well as telling me how the company markets its products. I learned more about retail and luxury marketing in two hours than I have in my entire time in business!

And looking at the watches – and learning about watch technology — was pretty cool, too.

You can read lots of articles about the pros and cons of social media and whether or not social media helps drive leads for B2B. The people who say social media doesn’t generate leads the way traditional marketing tactics do are probably right.

However, you can’t beat the connections that you make on social media — connections you would never make with cold calls, direct mail, or even an optimized Web site.

Melanie, you are fabulous, as is your company. Thank you for a wonderful afternoon — I had a great time!

Facebook is hot. Everyone, it seems, is on it.

The 14-year old girl in my afterschool carpool lives and dies by Facebook. (She often states she wishes she had a 24/7 Webcam in order to record her life!)

People I haven’t spoken to in years Friend me on Facebook.

And judging from all the press, such as this article about Facebook taking over our lives in a recent issue of Fortune, Facebook is a communications revolution.

Here is the sorry truth — I don’t like Facebook.

I know people use it to network and find jobs. I know businesses use it to “communicate” with customers. I know, I know, I know.

But it just feels incredibly creepy to me to post personal information about myself . . . information my clients, business partners, and colleagues can read.

I cannot present myself online — and in particular, with Facebook — the way I would with the women I work out with on a weekly basis at the gym, the friends I have lunch with, and the people who have traveled life with me and who really don’t need to see my “updates” on Facebook in order to keep up with me. When we need to talk, we simply pick up the phone. 

At first, I worried about my lack of comfort with Facebook. I’m supposed to be well-versed in all things social media. I advise clients on how to use social media — and I’ve seen how it benefits my own business (especially Twitter, which I love).

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the essential truth:

You have to recognize and honor your own comfort levels when it comes to social media. 

Facebook makes me feel uncomfortable because it crosses a line between my business life and my personal life — a line I want to keep intact. Sure, I share some personal things with clients — because that’s how you grow relationships over time.

But do I want to share my vacation photos with them? No.

Do I want them to know what books I’m reading or the TV shows I’m watching? No.

Do I want them to know when I get up and when I go to sleep and where I’m eating dinner that night? No.

And truthfully, I really don’t think they care, either.

So, I will stick to the old-fashioned method of building solid relationships : having real life conversations that take place on the phone or face-to-face and that include skills that are still incredibly essential — LISTENING and LEARNING.

I, and by extension, my friends, colleagues, and clients, will be better for it.

Ok, let’s get a couple of things out of the way.

First off, I am a huge fan of David Meerman Scott. I love his books, his e-books and his blog. I also like him — he’s a great guy and always willing to share his expertise.

I’ve also known David for almost 10 years — he was one of my first clients when he worked for a now defunct “dot com” company. He emailed me when he went out on his own and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

And last but not least, my client, Dr. Helaine Smith, is featured in his new book, World Wide Rave : Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories (Wiley, March 2009). I was one of those who received a galley copy.

Although I love David and his ideas, I was slow to see the value of social media. Because I work for B2B companies, I valued — and still do — traditional marketing practices like trade shows, white papers, direct mail and the like.

You know, the stuff that delivers LEADS.

But a revolution has taken place — and no where did I see this more clearly than with my own business.

The more I got my name “out there” using tools like this blog and LinkedIn and now Twitter, the more business came my way.

But I still didn’t quite buy into social media — the value of which I could see for a consultant like me or a dentist or even a hot Internet marketing company like HubSpot or a way cool company like Cisco.

But a company that manufactures high-tech widgets that only engineers could love?

No way, Jose.

But then I sat in a meeting last week with said bunch of engineers — and we’re talking the hardcore type — and one of them said, “You know, LinkedIn has a number of groups for our industry” and I just about fell over.

Social media is not about creating a company profile on Twitter and then sending people to your products and services pages via propaganda disguised as “Tweets.”

Social media is not about replacing your traditional marketing collateral with YouTube videos and then waiting for leads to drop out of the sky.

And social media is definitely not about creating content and then having people hand over their name, rank and serial number in exchange for this content.

As David says in his book, social media is about combining the many online  tools available and using them to reach your buyers directly by having people spread your ideas — with no strings attached.

For you marcom and PR folk steeped in traditional marketing and PR, this means letting others talk about your company without you “controlling the message.”

I really like World Wide Rave. I like it because David takes the time to answer many of his critics — and in the process, gives marketing and PR professionals ammunition to use when advocating the use of social media.

I especially like the fact that he dismisses the myth that a successful World Wide Rave only means that millions and millions of people view, listen or read your content. As David says,

A World Wide Rave is about reaching your buyer personas — the people who will be interested in your products and services. For you, that might just be 10 people. Or ten million. No matter the size of your market, when people are spreading your ideas online, it’s the best endorsement possible and a proven path to increased sales, fame and fortune.

David is doing lots of fun stuff to promote his book, which is due out March 3, 2009. Right now you can access his World Wide Rave blog and see the locations around the world where people have photographed themselves with his World Wide Rave poster — from the Boston area to Antarctica!

This poster campaign is just one clever way to conduct a World Wide Rave — one that *any* company can do with minimal cost and effort.

Years before anyone bandied about the phrase, “personal brand,” Penny Power, CEO and Founder of Ecademy, was asking herself how independent business people could become better known to each other through online communities.

Says Penny, “At that time, about eleven years ago, I could see that the way large companies were being run was going to implode. I could see the rise of the independent capitalist and the need for these people to create personal brands online.”

Penny and her husband ended up building the first online social network — Ecademy — with $5 million of their own money. “We built Ecademy organically,” says Penny, “because we really wanted a community that filled a specific niche and was high-quality. We wanted business owners to get value from each other.”

According to Penny, individual business owners can build their brands — and by extension, trust and reputation — by building their networks within Ecademy.

Last month Penny used social media tools from within Ecademy to promote a webinar Penny gave at BrightTALK’s Conversation Marketing Summit.

“I saw the email about the Summit from B2B Magazine and thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute! I’ve been talking conversation marketing for the last five years and I’m not on the list of presenters!’ I contacted the magazine, who put me in touch with BrightTALK, and within four hours I had my Webinar, ‘Understanding Social Networks for Your Business,’ online and ready to roll.”

In conjuction with the Summit, BrightTALK held a contest to see which presenter could attract the most attendees to their Webinar through social media tactics. Penny won the contest — despite the fact that she had only one day to promote her Webinar – by emailing her personal network of 4,000 and posting a market place listing on Ecademy.

“I posted only to my network — not the entire 500,000 member community,” reports Penny. “But the results show the power of ‘conversation marketing’ or social media. I did the marketing for my Webinar in a half hour . My webinar received 187 views — 77 of which were live and 110 of which watched the recorded version.”

According to Penny, the number of people who now work for themselves (or independent capitalists, as Penny calls them), is rising dramatically — and for those who hang out a shingle after losing a job, building a brand online can’t be done overnight.

The biggest mistake people make, when building a new network, is to go into an existing community and act as if they’ve been a member for years. “It works the same way offline,” she says. “You can’t move into a new neighborhood, stroll to the corner bar, hand out business cards and say, ‘Drinks on me.’ You have to build familarity and trust.”

Building this trust — and one’s brand — can take 18 – 24 months, says Penny. People need to see that you’re stable, that you’ll stick around and that you’re in the community to help others — not just take from people.

“When you join a new community,” says Penny, “you have to earn your place through good deeds — and this means helping others, offering information, and helping to forge connections. It’s all about building trust. Only then can you move into a business relationship where a transaction or referral can take place.”

Ecademy, which is huge in the UK and Europe, is slowly making inroads in the U.S. Unlike LinkedIn, which is a directory of business people, Ecademy is a social business community of people who forge networks. The platform includes many of the most popular social media tools, including Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Skype — all of which are embedded in people’s platforms.

HubSpot Marketing posted five excellent blogging resolutions — from which I’m heavily borrowing (with their permission)!

Herewith, my blogging resolutions for 2009 (which is going to be an excellent year!):

1. Post more regularly — I make resolutions all year long to post more regularly. Some weeks I post two or three times. But other times, when I get really busy and overwhelmed, I don’t post at all. My first resolution is to add my blog to my daily work schedule and then post at least two times a week every week.

2. Link to other bloggers — I read a ton of blog posts, newsletters, and reports. I even print out this information and plaster sticky notes on it to remind me to write blog posts. But alas, by the time I get around to writing, the blog post, newsletter or report is months old. I resolve to do a better job of linking to other bloggers by writing about their interesting or insightful information within a week of it being posted online.

3. Learn how to better optimize this blog — I downloaded and activated the WordPress SEO plugin, but I never use it. I resolve to learn how to optimize this blog and then report my findings.

4. Link to my other content — I publish an e-newsletter each month, write articles for other online publications, and often get interviewed by other bloggers, but I don’t always publish links to this content. I resolve to do a better job of promoting other bloggers and online venues and their efforts to reach out to me.

5. Use more pictures — I heartily agree with those experts who say blog posts should have pictures. I do try to include them when possible, but will often forego adding pictures when pressed for time. I resolve to make my blog posts more graphically appealing by adding pictures, logos, YouTube videos, etc. whenever possible.

That is my list. What do you think I should do more of? What should I do less of?